This special issue contains selected contributions originating from the ‘Symposium on Learning Control’ which took place immediately prior to the 2009 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in Shanghai. This two day event was held at Shanghai Jiaotong University to commemorate 25 years of highly creative and productive research since the concept of Iterative Learning Control (ILC) was formally proposed by Professor Arimoto in the seminar paper (Arimoto, Kawamura, and Miyazaki 1984). The symposium was organised by up-and-coming members of the ILC research community, aided by an advisory committee of leading figures in the field. As well as being guest of honour at the event, Professor Arimoto delivered one of the plenary lectures.