Origins and Aims

Origins

The initiative for the European Conference for Social Work Research (ECSWR) came from extensive conversations within the university community from 2005 onwards. The conference is open to all interested people including practitioners, the policy community, managers, service users engaged with research, university and agency researchers, lecturers, and graduate research students. It represents a wide range of substantive, methodological and value-based interests. It is open also to those in broader social care, human services, and social pedagogy fields, and to interested members of other academic disciplines. The first conference was held in Oxford, England in March 2011, chaired by Ian Shaw from the University of York.

The conference series aspires to a high standard of research presentations and a significant role in shaping the development of social work. While there are several existing excellent conferences that include a research dimension, there has been nothing within Europe that provides a general forum for the social work research community. By drawing on a wide constituency the intention is to open up the potential for cross-cultural learning within and beyond Europe, and for developing the quality of social work research internationally. The development network appreciated expressions of interest from Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, and indeed from the pan-European level, the Arab world, the Asia Pacific region, and North America. The Planning Committee for each event works in liaison with a network of consulting members from across Europe. The language of the Conference is English.

Aims

The conference series provides a forum that is open to all who are engaged and interested in social work research. It aims to:

1. Foster the development of high levels of innovatory and interdisciplinary social work and social care research across the European community of nations.
2. Develop a range of ways in which social work research may have beneficial consequences for practice, service users, service development, and service delivery.
3. Enhance research capacity within the European social work community.
4. Provide an environment for the application of research methods and approaches by those from a wide range of disciplines within and beyond the social sciences, in forms which have relevance for social work practice and research.