Over five decades, the Leeds-Lyon Symposia have been a platform through which many groundbreaking research achievements have been disseminated, underpinning innovations in all aspects of advanced tribological systems. The experimental, analytical, and computational research tools developed by research groups around the world are now being used to address tribological challenges related to new technologies such as electric vehicles, hydrogen engines, the tribology of materials used in extreme conditions, coatings, biomedical technologies, nanomaterials, lubrication, etc. The 50th Leeds-Lyon Symposium provides us with a great opportunity to review the achievements in the last fifty years of the symposium with the aim of addressing current challenges in tribology and looking into tribology prospects and new challenges of the next fifty years to come.