The conference deals with materials microstructure and properties, as they can be studied by diffraction methods, with a special interest in the application of diffraction techniques to polycrystalline materials. In close relation with the previous Size-Strain conferences, SS-VI focuses on methodologies for the study of lattice defects, residual stress and texture in thin films, surfaces and nanostructures, line-broadening analysis, line-profile fitting and modelling based on fundamental parameters for applications in materials science problems. As initiated during SS-V new developments for local measurements such as microbeam diffraction or coherent diffraction are also of special interest.