EUPRERA ANNUAL CONGRESS
MÁLAGA 2026
SEPTEMBER, 16-19
Regenerating public relations and strategic communication in the face of the new global order: are we ready for this challenge?
About the EUPRERA Annual Congress
The European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA)
Is an autonomous organisation with over 550 members across 50 countries, with a vision of advancing academic research and knowledge in public relations and strategic communication. To achieve this vision, EUPRERA organises a highly regarded Annual Congress in collaboration with a prestigious European academic institution.
The Annual Congress is an opportunity to exchange knowledge, explore innovative methods, and disseminate the latest research outcomes. The 27th Annual Congress will be hosted by the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the Faculty of Communications Sciences of University of Malaga in the city of Malaga, on the Costa del Sol of Andalusia, Spain, between 16 and 19 September 2026.
The organizing institution
The University of Málaga was founded in 1972 and is recognized as one of the leading public universities in Spain. With more than 35,000 students and 3,700 staff members across its two main campuses—El Ejido and Teatinos—the University combines academic excellence with a strong commitment to innovation, sustainability, and internationalization.
The institution plays a key role in advancing knowledge and contributing to the social, cultural, and economic development of the region and beyond. The Faculty of Communication Sciences at the University of Málaga is a benchmark in Spain for teaching and research in the fields of communication, journalism, audiovisual studies, and advertising and public relations. With over 200 faculty members and researchers and around 3,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, it is one of the most dynamic faculties within the University.
The Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the University of Málaga is a leading reference in Ibero-America in the field of public relations. It stands out for its academic and research leadership, with pioneering initiatives such as the International Journal of Public Relations, the Public Relations Research Association, and the Latin American Communication Monitor (LCM), promoted in collaboration with EUPRERA. The Department also plays a key role in national and European research projects on communication, gender, lobbying, and sustainability, and has supervised a significant number of defended doctoral theses, consolidating its position as an international benchmark in strategic communication.
Organizing committee
Isabel Ruiz-Mora and Alejandro Álvarez-Nobell (chairs), Andrea Oliveira; Bel Barroso; Daniel Guerrero; Andrea Castro Martínez; Carmen Cristófol Rodríguez; María Jesús Fernández.
The Congress Theme
Regeneration is understood as a developmental paradigm that goes beyond traditional notions of sustainability, resilience, and even corporate social responsibility. It is not only about sustaining or withstanding systems, but also about actively restoring, revitalising, and evolving social, economic, and environmental dynamics. This perspective calls for a profound transformation in how organisations and institutions operate, aligning their practices with the principles of living systems. It promotes adaptive structures, interdependent relationships, and the generation of positive impacts across broader ecological and social contexts. In this sense, the regenerative approach resonates with a more socially oriented understanding of public relations and strategic communication, conceived as fields that construct meaning and contribute to social transformation.
This regenerative approach opens up debate and critique on how these fields can transcend their traditional role, acknowledging their own path, with both lights and shadows, to become true agents of change in a world marked by crisis and uncertainty.
The EUPRERA 2026 Congress in Málaga is conceived as a space for critical reflection on the role that public relations and strategic communication are playing in a world shaped by polarisation, disinformation, and the rethinking of organisational models.
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In the context of climate crisis, social inequality, and political-economic disruption, public relations and strategic communication can be a key dimension for organisational and social regeneration, although they have also served to reinforce power structures, amplify corporate narratives without real impact, or perpetuate exclusionary dynamics.
This congress aims to open a deep debate on the tensions between the transformative potential of these disciplines and their limitations in practice from a critical perspective. How can public relations and strategic communication contribute to regeneration in a broad sense? To what extent are they truly influencing organisational decision-making from an ethical and critical perspective? How is the construction of legitimacy managed in a world where disinformation, polarisation, and phenomena such as dark PR or greenwashing are prevalent?
The event will bring together academics, researchers, and professionals in a transdisciplinary, critical, and reflective space to analyse the opportunities and contradictions of public relations and strategic communication today. From the design of regenerative narratives to the evaluation of communication’s impact on society and the responsibilities the profession must assume, including the need for ethical and conscious leadership, the congress will address how the discipline can (and must) evolve in this context of global transformation.
