[en] The economics of current nuclear power plants have improved through increasing fuel burnups and fuel cycles, i.e. the effective time that fuel remains in the reactor core and the amount of energy it generates. Increasing the consumption of fissile material in the fuel element before it is discharged from the reactor means less fuel is required over the reactor's life cycle, which results in lower amounts of fresh fuel, lower spent fuel storage costs, and less waste for ultimate disposal. There has been a continuous historical increase in fuel burnup from 20-25 GWd/tU in Generation I reactors to 50-60 GWd/tU in today's light water reactors and this tendency continues in as much as technological and operational improvements make it possible. In parallel, higher enrichments are discussed, leading to a higher energy yield. For heavy water reactors slight enrichment of fuels and correspondingly growing burnups in CANDU/PHWR are driven by the same economical incentives. Higher burnups and better utilization of fissile nuclear materials (including use of MOX fuel and burnable neutron absorbers), as well as more flexible power manoeuvring, place challenging operational demands on materials used in reactor components, and first of all on fuel and cladding materials. It defines a need for increased attention to measures ensuring compliance to safety criteria related to fission gas release (to limit the internal rod pressure), pellet-cladding interaction (to avoid clad cracking combined with stress and aggressive chemical environment) and pellet-cladding mechanical interaction (to avoid clad mechanical fracture). These measures that secure desired in-pile fuel performance parameters include adequate improvements in fuel material properties and fuel rod designs. That is why the subject Technical Meeting was recommended to the IAEA in 2007 by the Technical Working Group on Fuel Performance and Technology (TWGFPT), and the recommendation was supported by the TWG on Light and Heavy Water-Cooled Reactors (TWGLWR and TWGHWR) with a proposal to hold it at the Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland. The purpose of the meeting is to provide an overview on the status and perspective of fuel pellet materials development and recent improvements in fuel rod designs for light and heavy water cooled power reactors. The meeting will cover both light and heavy water reactor fuels with the following main objectives: - Consideration of modern technological and design tools enabling reliable performance of fuels and rod columns in current and planned operational environments; - Analysis of high burnup fuel structure and properties, including RIM effects, thermal behaviour, fission gas release, PCI and PCMI; - Discussion on specific features of MOX fuel, as well as perspectives on advanced fuels like Vibro-pack, Thorium fuel and others. Each of the papers in this book of abstracts has been indexed separately