The first International Substorm Workshop（ISW）will be held in Beijing at Center for Space Science and Applied Research (CSSAR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS),Beijing, China, Oct 12-16, 2009.The ISW 2009 is the first workshop of the International Workshop Series on Critical Problems in Space Physics to be held in China every other year. The goal of theseries is to promote creativity, original ideas of young researchers to develop new directions, new understandings of critical problems in space physics. There will be 15 sessions of 100 minutes each, including tutorial Lectures and discussion sessions to discuss the physics related to substorm. More details on ISW 2009 will be provided in the second announcement, planned in August.