Three of our RePIM Doctoral Candidates, Tomáš, Aurora, and Lorenzo recently attended the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) conference which took place in Brno on 8-11 September, where they joined researchers from across Europe for several days of presentations, discussions and networking around some of the most pressing questions in media and communication research.
As they have recently embarked on their doctoral research within the RePIM Doctoral Network, the conference offered an especially valuable opportunity to immerse themselves in current academic debates and to engage with a broad range of perspectives relevant to their own projects.
Throughout the conference, they attended panels addressing the future of Public Service Media, Public Interest Media and journalism, as well as wider questions around platformisation, digital transformation, media policy, audiences and changing media infrastructures. Several RePIM supervisors also participated in the conference, contributing their own research and perspectives to discussions that closely connected with the themes explored across the network.
For the RePIM Doctoral Candidates, the conference was not only an opportunity to follow these debates but also to observe how different scholars framed similar research challenges, approached them methodologically, and connected theoretical questions with developments in the media sector and policy environment. Beyond the formal conference programme, ECREA also provided an important space for building academic connections. Tomáš, Lorenzo and Aurora had the opportunity to meet fellow early-career researchers as well as more established scholars from across Europe working on adjacent questions in media and communication research.
These exchanges highlighted how many of the challenges at the centre of RePIM — from the future role of Public Service Media and public interest journalism to platform dependency, audience fragmentation and changing institutional strategies — are being examined across a wider European research community. They also offered the Doctoral Candidates an early opportunity to situate their own work within that community and begin developing the networks that will support them throughout their doctoral journey.
Participation in international conferences forms an important part of the broader training environment of the RePIM Doctoral Network. We are grateful to ECREA for organising such a stimulating event and for creating a space where emerging and established researchers could come together around the future of media and communication research.
We are already looking forward to ECREA 2028 in Vilnius, where we hope to have an even larger RePIM delegation!