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Report on the second international congress of EUGEO
Bratislava (Slovakia), August 13–16, 2009

EUGEO is the society of scholarly geographical societies, associations of geographers and 
other membership organisations representing geographers and geographical science in the 
European Union. The EUGEO initiative was fi rst conceived in January 1994, at a meeting 
in Rome organised by the Italian Geographical Society. The idea was to encourage and 
enhance greater collaboration among geographical societies of EU member states and in 
general, geographers of the continent. The Royal Dutch Geographical Society (KNAG) 
initiated the fi rst congress of EUGEO in Amsterdam in August 2007, which was a turning 
point in the life of the society. The success of the Amsterdam congress convinced both 
the participants and EUGEO Board members about the necessity of such an event where 
– similar to the AAG annual conferences in the US – European geographers can meet and 
discuss the most relevant issues of the discipline. In Amsterdam decision was made by 
EUGEO Board to organise the biennial congresses.

The second international congress of EUGEO entitled ‘Challenges for the European 
Geography in the 21st Century’ was organised by the Slovak Geographical Society in close 
collaboration with Comenius University, Faculty of Sciences and the Institute of Geography 
of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. The congress was held in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, 
between August 13–16, 2009. Bratislava with its geographical location provided also excel-
lent opportunity for geographers of the former state-socialist countries (including Hungary) 
to get involved in the work of the major international conference. The second congress 
of EUGEO was att ended by ca. 150 participants from 28 countries. During the three day 
long meeting plenary and thematic sessions as well as poster sessions were organised. 
The congress was followed by optional excursions to various parts of Slovakia and to the 
neighbouring countries (including Hungary). 

The congress was offi  cially opened by Vladimir Ira, president of the organiz-
ing committ ee, followed by high rank representatives of the Comenius University and 
the Slovak Academy of Sciences, and not least by Christian Vandermotten, president of 
EUGEO. Aft er the opening ceremony three keynote papers were delivered in the opening 
plenary session. Tadeusz Stryjakiewicz (Poland) introduced the results of a major EU 
funded project (ACRE) focusing on the location factors of the creative and knowledge-in-
tensive industries in European metropolitan regions. Armando Montanari (Italy) explored 
the topic of human mobility and local development from a broad theoretical perspective. 
Finally, Jozef Minár (Slovakia) presented his research fi ndings in the context of geographi-
cal fi elds and spatial organisation of landscape. During the congress 12 sessions were 
organised under the main topic, these explored broad but relevant issues, such as:

Theoretical geography;
Land use and land cover change;
Geomorphology;
GIS and spatial data processing;
Sustainable development;
Population development;
Global mobility;
Political geography and governance;
Urban renewal;
Geography of governance;
Trends in tourism geography;
Regions – development – disparities.

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In the closing plenary session three presentations took place. Christian 
Vandermotten (Belgium) summarized his long experience about regional disparities within 
Europe under the title ‘The new map of the European regional structures and their evolu-
tion’. Jiři Blažek (Czech Republic) devoted his lecture to the challenges and dilemmas of 
the future EU cohesion policy. Finally, Zoltán Kovács (Hungary) summarised the most 
important features of urbanisation in East Central Europe prior to and aft er the change of 
regime in 1989–90. 

The scientifi c programme of the congress was extended by a book exhibition, a 
guided tour in Bratislava old town and diff erent social events like the congress dinner, 
which was held on a ship cruising on the Danube river. 

It can be concluded that the second congress of EUGEO was an outstanding event 
of European geography: it stimulated fruitful discussions about research, education, and 
developments in the subject. The diversity of disciplines represented by the participants 
emphasised a rich dialogue between geographers and practitioners, researchers and teach-
ers. Hopefully the next EUGEO congress to be held at The Royal Geographical Society 
(with IBG) in London at the end of August 2011 will att ract even more geographers from 
all over the continent and beyond, and it will further strengthen the academic appreciation 
of EUGEO and the European congress of geographers. Further details about forthcoming 
congresses of EUGEO can be found in the following website: www.eugeo.org.

Zoltán Kovács