European Society for Social Drug Research

The ESSD holds annual conferences to promote collaboration and co-operation among researchers working in the drugs field. Since 1990, more than thirty annual conferences have been organised in over twenty countries, alternating between North, South, East and West Europe.

Next ESSD conference
to be announced...

Date and location of the 2025 36th Annual ESSD Conference will be announced in due course...

Sign up for a free ESSD membership to receive e-mail updates of future conferences.

A key feature of the ESSD conferences is the active participation of attendants which allows presenters to share experiences with their colleagues across Europe. There are no keynote lectures, parallel sessions nor workshops. All presentations last for 15 minutes and there is plenty of room for discussion, exchange of ideas and informal gatherings. Such an atmosphere is also appropriate for participants new to the field, especially young and new researchers. The conference lasts for 2½ days during September or October.

Organisation of the annual conference is largely in the hands of a local team. The ESSD Board advises each year’s local organisers on the conference themes, selection of abstracts and the conference programme. Any ESSD member can volunteer to hold the conference by contacting an ESSD Board member and their request will be considered by the board. Local conference organisers are responsible for covering all costs of hosting and organising the conference.

ESSD has no funding for conferences and there is no membership fee. Participants of the ESSD conferences are required to pay a ‘conference output fee’. This fee covers all of the costs related to the output of the annual conference (see Publications), such as publisher fees, editing costs, costs related to the editorial board meeting(s), and distribution costs. The conference fee is NOT a conference registration fee: it does not cover any aspects of the conference, such as the conference dinner, refreshments or catering during the conference, the rental costs of the conference venue, conference packs, book of abstracts, etc. Local conference organisers are responsible for covering all costs of hosting and organising the conference. The fee is only intended to support and ensure the output of the annual conference. Participants will receive a free copy of the latest ESSD publication.
The standard conference fee is €100. ESSD Board members and students (bachelor, master and PhD students) pay a reduced rate of €50.

Below is a list of previous conferences with links to available books of abstracts. Downloads of presentation slides in the books of abstracts (from 2016 onwards) are available for ESSD members only (password required).