Book excerpt: This book presents the refereed proceedings of the Third International Symposium of Formal Methods Europe, FME '96, held in Oxford, UK, in March 1996. FME '96 was co-sponsored by IFIP WG 14.3 and devoted to "the application and demonstrated industrial benefit of formal methods, their new horizons and strengthened foundations". The 35 full revised papers included were selected from a total of 103 submissions; also included are three invited papers. The book addresses all relevant aspects of formal methods, from the point of view of the industrial R & D professional as well as from the academic viewpoint, and impressively documents the significant progress in the use of formal methods for the solution of real-world problems.