Soft matter systems such as colloids, block co-polymer micelles and dendrimers self-organise to form complex patterns when cooled from a melt. Recent efforts in this area focus on the modelling needed to successfully predict thresholds of different crystalline phases and to investigate their growth dynamics. This mini-symposium will highlight the use of phase field crystal, density functional and molecular dynamical models to examine the (i) influence of metastable states at a liquid-crystal interface, (ii) grain growth and defect dynamics and (iii) competition between different polymorphs. This mini-symposium will foster discussions between emerging and experienced researchers investigating self-assembly of soft matter and identify potential new modelling and computational techniques to advance this field.