The International Symposium entitled ‘Visualizing signaling nanoplatforms at a higher spatiotemporal resolution’ sponsored by the Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA) was held on 29–31 May 2013 at the ICFO-Institute of Photonic Sciences, in Barcelona, Spain. The meeting brought together a multidisciplinary group of international leaders in the fields of super-resolution imaging (nanoscopy) and cell membrane biology, and served as a forum to further our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms that govern nanostructures and protein–function relationships at the cell membrane.