The study of broadly-defined energetic materials has been of increasing importance,from both academic and applied perspec-tives,and become increasingly interdisciplinary in the last decades.The special issue of the Chinese Academy of Engineering journal Engineering is dedicated to energetic materials and interdisci-plinary sciences,and complements the International Forum on Frontiers of Energetic Materials(FEM2019)that took place in Chengdu,China in November 2019.An aim of both this special edi-tion of Engineering and FEM2019 is to stimulate scientific and tech-nological communications in the field of energetic materials.