As you know, ice caves represent a small but fascinating research field for speleologists and glaciologists in many countries. As you also know, the interested scientific community is quite small and scattered. IWIC-I is the first workshop entirely devoted to ice caves research. We wish to offer a place to point out the state of the art, to discuss ongoing research projects, and to boost future international co-operations. Just to avoid confusion, IWIC-I will focus on \"ice caves\" in the meaning of rock-hosted caves containing perennial ice and snow deposits. Furthermore, IWIC-I is an ideal opportunity to widen the availability among the interested audience of important research results formerly published only in non-English papers. The day following to the contributions presentation session there will be a field excursion to the Gheţarul de la Scărişoara, one of the most documented ice caves in the world.[...]