FEPS at the 4th Pan-Polish Congress of Political Sciences

4th Pan-Polish Congress of Political Sciences was this year hosted by Maria Sklodowska-Curie University of Lublin (established in 19444). This annual three day conference is packed with both plenary sessions and with workshops, which are organised around presentations of the ongoing and finalised research that is being conducted by 1000 participating scholars from across the country. It is a great opportunity for discussing the state of social science in that specific field, as also to network through joint thematic interest – which encounters frequently result in scholar publications afterwards. This year much of the focus was given to the criticism of the reform that the Polish Government of Law and Justice plans to conduct, which was also one of the reasons for many delegates to join in the protest and leave the plenary during the speech of the responsible Minister.

As every year since the first Congress in Poznan, FEPS was represented by Dr Ania Skrzypek, FEPS Senior Research Fellow, who presented a paper “The possible impact of the ongoing transformations of the national political parties’ systems onto the EU partisan and institutional level” at the panel “Political Parties in the times of a change”. Dr Skrzypek also took part in the meeting of the Network of Critical Thought of the Progressive Academics, where ways for political sciences to remain independent and constructive in safeguarding democracy where the main topics.