Research into the structure of the nuclear many body system continues to provide new insights and surprises to both, our understanding of the strong force and effective nuclear interaction and our ability to handle the many-body aspects of the nuclear system.

From an experimental point of view, much of the new information arises from the advanced abilities to reach new regions of unstable nuclei in reaction studies, employing inverse reactions with rare-isotope beams. This has also considerable impact on nuclear astrophysics where reactions between unstable isotopes are the key to our understanding of explosive nucleosynthesis.