EUPRERA 2026 Congress. Editors’ Roundtable: “Publishing, Legitimacy and the Future of Communication Research”

Jesper Falkheimer is Professor of Strategic Communication at Lund University, Professor II at Kristiania University College in Oslo, Honorary Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Communication Management and has held several senior academic leadership roles, including Executive Director for Research, Collaboration and Innovation at Lund University and Rector of Campus Helsingborg. He also served as President of EUPRERA in 2024–2025. His research focuses on strategic communication theory, communication management, crisis communication, persuasion, relationships, society and disinformation. He is the author and editor of numerous publications, including Research Handbook of Strategic Communication, Psychological Defence – An Introduction, and the third edition of Strategic Communication: An Introduction to Theory and Global Practice.

Jens Seiffert-Brockmann is Professor of Business Communication at the Department of Business Communication at Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). From 2015 to 2020, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Corporate Communication Research Group at the Department of Journalism and Communication Studies at the University of Vienna. He received his doctorate in 2014 on public trust in media society at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Leipzig, where he also studied communication and media studies and political science. His research and teaching activities have taken him abroad to Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic), George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia (USA) and Lund University (Sweden), among others. Jens Seiffert-Brockmann is Deputy Head of the Department of Business Communication and Program Director of the International Master’s Program in Business Communication at WU. He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Strategic Communication, Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Research (CMC) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), and a member of the Ethics Council of the Public Relations Association Austria (PRVA). Since 2025, he has also led the EUPRERA PhD Seminar.

Martina Topić-Rutherford is an associate professor in public relations leadership at the University of Alabama, USA. Her work examines how communication shapes organizational culture, authority, legitimacy, and professional identity. Her perspective is informed by two doctoral disciplines: behavioral sociology and communication/public relations, which allow her to connect individual behavior with the wider institutional and cultural systems in which people work, lead, seek recognition, and build belonging. She is Editor-in-Chief of Corporate Communications: An International Journal and Editor-in-Chief of a book series “Women, Economics and the Labour Relations” (both with Emerald). She is also Editor-in-Chief of the “Northern Lights: A Film & Media Yearbook” (Intellect), and co-editor of the book series “Routledge New Directions in PR and Communication Research”. She is the author of Fashion Advertising and PR: A Historical and Sociological Perspective and Workplace Culture in Mass Communication Industries. In EUPRERA, she leads the Master Thesis Award and serves as one of the Heads of the Scientific Committee for the Annual Congress.

Yijing Wang is Full Professor and Chair of Strategic Communication, with a focus on Responsible and Sustainable Organisations and Business in the Department of Media and Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She serves as Chair of the ECREA Risk and Crisis Communication Section, Editor-in-Chief of Corporate Reputation Review, and Editorial Board Member of Public Relations Review and Business Horizons. She is the Principal Investigator and Coordinator of the Horizon Europe project CUES (EUR 6.5 million, 2024–2028), a Management Committee Member of the COST Action project Alert Hub, and a member of the Crisis Communication Think Tank (CCTT). Yijing obtained her PhD degree in Corporate Reputation and Stakeholder Management from Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is the author of numerous international publications in journals such as the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of International Management, Business Horizons, Convergence, Public Relations Review, Journal of Communication Management, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, and Media and Communication.

Isabel Ruiz-Mora is Associate Professor at the University of Málaga, in the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising. She is currently Principal Investigator of the project “Citizen Activism and Communication in the Face of Climate Change”, funded by the Government of Spain, and of the project “PhDs EU-Rail. Extending the Rail Network of PhDs in Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking”, funded by EU Horizon JU Research and Innovation Actions. Her research interests follow three main lines: the role of strategic communication, sustainability and activism in creating spaces for dialogue; the gender perspective in public relations academia; and the railway sector and citizen processes in urban areas. She is editor of the Revista Internacional de Relaciones Públicas and has been a visiting professor and researcher at universities in Scotland, Denmark, England, Malaysia, Austria and Portugal. Professionally, she always seeks to align her academic work with initiatives or processes taking place in society, in order to strengthen its purpose of knowledge transfer and social impact. She is one of the promoters of the “Académicas PR” network, which studies and deepens understanding of women’s contribution to public relations academia. She participates in the podcast “Relaciones Públicas al Descubierto”, a knowledge-transfer project funded by AIRP, the Spanish Association of Public Relations Researchers, which aims to make visible the contribution of public relations to addressing societal challenges. For two years, she was responsible for communication at UMA RacingTeam, the University of Málaga’s motorcycle racing team. In the area of knowledge transfer, she collaborates on a project with Metro Málaga and with the Simur-UMA Chair “Compliance and Transparent and Responsible Communication.” Isabel is Co-Chair of the EUPRERA 2026 Annual Congress in Málaga.