Welcome to the ESSD 2020 Conference Online

Welcome to the ESSD 2020 Conference Online

Welcome to the 31st Annual Conference of the European Society for Social Drug Research (ESSD) in 2020. Given the COVID-19 pandemic and related travel restrictions, the ESSD Board and Organising Committee decided to hold this year's conference as a virtual event. This decision is based on the strong and positive responses received from ESSD members participating in the recent online survey.

The ESSD 2020 online conference will take place on Thursday, 24 September and Friday, 25 September, 2020. It is organised by the Department of Political Science of the University of Vienna.

The 31st Annual Conference of the ESSD will focus on a variety of themes including drug related implications of COVID-19, new trends in drug use and digitisation of drug markets. Additionally, there will be presentations on theories and concepts for drug policy. Lastly, methods in drug research and ethical challenges in drug research will be discussed. We are thrilled that conference participants from over 20 European countries and beyond registered for this year's ESSD conference.

The ESSD 2020 virtual conference will be powered by Zoom. Some rules of conduct and Zoom instructions are available here. The programme includes ten live-sessions, each lasting for 45 minutes. Informal online networking opportunities will be provided during the breaks. Each online presentation will last for 10 minutes, followed by ample time for the presenters and the audience to jointly discuss the presentations of each session. An overview of the conference abstracts is provided here.

In addition, we will have an Early Career Researcher Forum. The side-event is dedicated to early-career researchers to meet fellow early-career researchers from across Europe and beyond. The forum is open to anyone who considers themselves an early career researcher from any field related to social drug research, wanting to share research ideas and experiences.

Going virtual will definitely mean all of us will have to learn and the transition may be bumpy and is likely to have some glitches. However, we very much hope you all will stay with us on board this year's experiment to recreate our conference and community online. We believe the new format, however forced upon us, will allow those with restricted access to funding to attend as well as be a more eco- and climate-friendly way of scholarly exchange.

Looking forward to your participation and contribution.

Meropi Tzanetakis & Alfred Uhl

ESSD 2020 Organising Committee