WELCOME

The 21st EAWOP Congress is being organized by the Polish Association of Organizational Psychology between the 24th and 27th of May 2023 at the International Congress Centre, Katowice, in the south of Poland.

So much has happened in the last two years that has changed our lives, our work and the ways we think about ourselves and the world in which we live. That is why we came to the decision to focus our congress on the theme “The Future is Now: the changing world of work”.  When considering these words, we kept changing our minds about the punctuation. Then we realised that different forms of punctuation were leading us to focus on different facets of the same topic and that our congress theme asks crucial questions about contribution, urgency, and delivery and most definitely represents a call to action from our profession. These different facets we believe to be:

• The future is now. Contribution. Our future is being created by many professionals in for example Engineering, IT, AI, Economics, Medicine, Human Resources. How will we develop new competences and how will we compete and collaborate? How will we help lead the way?
• The future is now! Urgency. We cannot wait to solve the problems of pandemics, migration, war, refugees, sustainability, climate and social change, violence against women and children and economic crises.
• The future is now? Delivery. How much of the present do we want in our future? What changes are desirable? What changes are essential? Can we even deliver our desired changes? How?

Our call to action focuses on these questions:

• Where is our voice? What must we say? How should we say it?

We are expecting huge interest in attending our event and anticipate many superb submissions that will contribute to our understanding of the changing world and the place that we have in it. Your submissions will be enhanced by a fantastic, invited programme that will include a cross-section of great thinkers and superb speakers.

We are all really looking forward to meeting and sharing this face-to-face event with you, our fellow work and organizational psychologists! What a wonderful opportunity to renew old friendships and to make new ones.

You will also greatly enjoy the location. Katowice is the capital of the Upper Silesia region, and in the past was famous for many coal mines and heavy industry. Nowadays it is a city of new technologies and innovation with many international companies. In 2024 Katowice will hold the title of the European City of Science.  Upper Silesia itself is a beautiful tourist region with plenty of forests and historical monuments.

You are warmly invited to the 21st EAWOP Congress in Poland and please take a look at this short video.

Pictured from left: Barbara Kożusznik, Annemarie Hiemstra and Barbara Smorczewska. Source: own