The conference will focus on the recent theoretical and experimental progress in understanding the production and properties of strange and heavy flavor (charm, beauty) quarks in high-energy nuclear collisions and in astrophysical phenomena, as well as in elementary processes. Properties of the strongly interacting quark-gluon plasma, recent advances in heavy-ion collisions at lower energies, the future heavy-ion program at CERN/LHC, and astrophysical objects in view of strangeness and heavy flavors are also topics of the conference. In the tradition of the SQM series, the conference aims to stimulate discussions with a lively, informal and friendly atmosphere with ample discussion time. The abstracts submited to this conference are very welcome and will be reviewed and refereed by our IAC and LOC. The accepted papers of the conference will be submitted for publication in the Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics as a special volume of the conference proceeding.