2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the discovery of pulsars and is thus an excellent moment to reflect on what we have learnt from these remarkable physical laboratories and to cast our eyes forward to the exciting opportunities they provide for physical and astrophysical studies in the coming decades. The look back is important as there have been so many significant milestones that we can continue to learn from while the look forward to the future is essential as the continuous improvement of current facilities and building of superb new facilities like FAST, MeerKAT, SKA, CTA, advanced gravitational wave detectors, eLISA, E-Rosita, Astrosat, Astro-H, HMXT, Spektr-RG and NICER, to name just a few promise decades of exciting (astro-)physics to follow.
