The 1st Swarm-Organ Periodic Meeting was much more than just a consortium meeting aiming to assess the progress of the project during the first 12 months of work. Held in Barcelona on the 24th and 25th of March, 2014, and hosted by James Sharpe at the Centre for Genomic Regulation ( CRG ) the meeting counted with the participation of all Swarm-Organ researchers plus a number of guests, each of them providing important insights into different aspects of the project.