This special section is dedicated to seismic anisotropy, which is playing an increasingly more important role in our understanding and modelling of the subsurface. Most papers published in this section were presented at the 14th International Workshop on Seismic Anisotropy (IWSA), which was held on 12–16 April 2010 in Hillarys, Perth, Western Australia. The main organizers of the workshop were Andrej Bona and Boris Gurevich from Curtin University and Greg Ball from Chevron. This workshop continued the tradition of biennial meetings of anisotropists, which began in 1984. The workshop was dedicated to the memory of Mike Schoenberg, one of the most prominent and inspirational members of the anisotropic community, who died of cancer in 2008 shortly after attending the 13th IWSA in Colorado, U. S. A. Celebration of Mike's contribution to the geophysical community was particularly fitting for a workshop held in Perth, where Mike gave a lasting inspiration to colleagues and students during a number of his sabbatical visits to Curtin University, CSIRO, and University of Western Australia. The 14th IWSA was generously sponsored by CGGVeritas, Woodside Energy, WesternGeco, Curtin University, and Santos Energy. The sponsorship helped reduce the cost for the participants and offered travel grants for overseas students who otherwise would not have been able to attend the workshop. Seed funding from the organizers of the previous IWSA greatly eased the planning of the workshop; similar seed funding will be forwarded to organizers of a future IWSA. There were 71 overseas and local participants from academia, research organizations, and industry, 13 student participants and 31 day participants. The program consisted of 42 oral presentations, seven posters and concluded with a short course “Seismic …