The physical modelling conference series has served as a primary means of sharing practise and disseminating current research in experimental geotechnics. Each conference highlights the trends, techniques and direction of current research. This paper summarises contributions to the 9th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics from researchers broadly in the field of infrastructure development. This themed paper aims to identify innovative approaches to geotechnical problems, advances in experimental techniques and equipment in order to address new research questions and future trends in infrastructure research that might feature more significantly in future conferences. Some reflection on past conference proceedings is included with the hope that the community appreciates the scale of our achievements since the first conference in the series
