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.

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.