The 11th ECSWR in 2022 took place in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in April 2022. It was hosted by
Faculty of Applied Social Sciences and Law (FASSL), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.
Bucharest colleagues who hosted the first online 10th
annual event in 2021 were fully acknowledged for
their work and its success.
The conference remains the primary space for members of the European social work research community
to gather and get to know each other, to share high quality research and expertise, and to build
collaborative relationships and networks. It incorporates the movers and shakers in research and
innovation but newcomers are always made to feel very welcome.
It was a delight to be there to share in this experience. The weather conditions may not have been
conducive to accommodate much sightseeing in a delightful city though some were brave enough to
tackle the bicycles - a must in Amsterdam - albeit that means competing for space and one's life with
busy trams, buses and pedestrians. Fear of publishing and breaching privacy rights prevents me from
posting the photos here!!!!! Albeit they are probably already on Facebook. The weather which was more
akin to our local weather here in Northern Ireland - wet - wet - wet - possibly less so for some of our
southern European colleagues - did nothing to dampen the spirits of the several hundreds of delegates -
of whom all were delighted to be meeting in person. In addition the main conference
proceedings were streamed live which enabled wider engagement around the world.
The theme of the 2022 European Conference for Social Work Research was enhancing and
sustaining social inclusion through social work research. Since 2020, the Covid pandemic has had a
substantial impact on exposing even further the entrenched inequalities in societies across Europe and
the wider world, leading to questions such as how can societies be socially inclusive in the context of
growing inequality? How can societies be socially inclusive with growing isolation between people? How
does accelerated digitalisation affect the development of social inclusion? How do excluded groups have
inclusive access to their entitlements to rights? How can social work research contribute to greater social
inclusion?
In these times, social inclusion is more important than ever and, as the International Federation of Social
Workers has argued, without social workers, a country cannot progress in terms of
social inclusion.