The first informal meeting to discuss ice physics was held at Erlenbach, Switzerland, in 1962, and the decision to make some formal structure for this series of symposia was taken in Munich in 1968 at the end of a meeting called by the group in the Technische Hochschule Munchen. Since then, there have been six conferences organized at four- or five-year intervals. In this paper the developments in ice physics over this period are reviewed to help put the present work in some perspective. The multidisciplinary nature of the studies and applications of ice physics research are demonstrated, with important inputs from solid-state physics, chemistry, crystallography, and field glaciology, and with applications beyond these subjects in meteorology, planetary and cometary physics, and biophysics.