The 18th edition of the European Association of Developmental Psychology (EADP) biennial conference (ECDP2017) took place in Utrecht, the Netherlands, from August 29 to September 1, 2017.

Thank you Utrecht for organizing an amazing conference!

Utrecht at the evening of the social event (Photo: Stephen Russel)

 Dear members of EADP, dear colleagues and friends

It is a great honor and pleasure to serve developmental psychology community in Europe and beyond as the president of EADP. Together with my highly committed colleagues in the Council we aim to contribute to the advancement of research and practice in developmental psychology through our various activities, foremost the bi-annual conference which will take place in Utrecht fall 2017, and to be as responsive as possible to your needs and ideas.

EADP is a great success story, but we are sure that we can make it better still by reaching out to practitioners and policy makers more, by building an even stronger community especially for the early career researchers, and by taking even more advantage of our unique situation of bringing together people from so many countries and cultural backgrounds.

Dear all, please use the opportunities offered by EADP and our website as well as contact me and the other EC members directly to share new ideas, start initiatives and build stronger networks. There is much left to do to create the impact needed to change the world for the better.

As the new President  my  aim is to build bridges with the other societies such as International  Society for the Study of Behaviroal Development (ISSBD), EARA, SRCD and SRA. For example,  last summer we had the 1st ISSBD-EADP joint symposium in Vilnius focusing on Peers, where ISSBD and EADP were present as institutional peers. It was a great success.

Second, my plan is also to build bridges with the European Federation of Psychological Associations (EFPA) and to build bridges between EADP and policy, Refugee crisis being one key topic, global recession as another and the role of young people as drivers of change as third. Fourth, I want to get our wonderful alumni on board. And finally, last but not least, the young generation is our future! I also aim to build new ways to achieve these goals for example methodological workshops and webinars as one model for capacity building.

I really look forward to any chance to meet and discuss with you,
Let’s work together

Katariina Salmela-Aro
President EADP