Book excerpt: This Workshop gathered engineers and scientists to discuss their recent research and issues related to photonic networks and their topologies, the enabling devices and applications these networks support. Optical communication, neural, sensor and computer networks were considered. Another part of the workshop was devoted to network components based on optical fibre, semiconductor and organic materials such as lasers, amplifiers and detectors, integrated optic and optoelectronic circuits. Applications in communications, optical sensing and signal processing were addressed, with particular emphasis on avionics, submarine, space as well as office, residential, medical and specialized (captive) services.