Following on from the 1st Editorial Board Meeting of Bioactive Materials (held April 2017, Minneapolis USA), the 2nd Editorial Board Meeting was held on the 28th August 2017 during the 9th Symposium on Biodegradable Metals for Biomedical Applications (http://biodegradablemetals.org). (see Figs. 1 and 2) The Symposium was held in Bertinoro Italy ( Emilie-Romagne region), 80 km southeast of Bologna. Every year the Symposium attracts ~150 participants working in the field of biodegradable metallic biomaterials, mainly based on Mg, Fe and Zn, with ~50 oral presentations and 90 posters delivered at the 9th Symposium by participants from 22 countries. Sessions were organised into a range of topics including metallurgy (alloying and processing, coatings, material properties, and corrosion), research concerned with testing in vitro and in vivo, and other important aspects of biological characterisation.