On behalf of organizing and scientific committees, it is a great honour and pleasure for me to invite you to the 15th European Conference on Personality (ECP15) held in Brno, the Czech Republic.
The conference has been organized by European Association of Personality Psychology (EAPP) since 1986.The European Conference on Personality has become an important event for the international community of psychologists, which is proved by the fact that we expect participants from all over the world despite the original European focus of the conference.
As a part of its tradition the conference concentrates both on well-established disciplines, like the study of individual differences and personality processes, and discussions on applied research, interdisciplinary approaches and links to newly established psychological disciplines and trends. Therefore the programme of ECP15 includes contributions on distinctive personality issues as personality genetics, personality and behavioral control, neurophysiology of intelligence, and methodological issues of personality research, as well as lectures devoted to personality and social relationships, developmental aspects of personality, personality and cultural differences, and dialogues between personality psychology and newly established theoretical approaches such as positive psychology.
„The Place to Be“ is a slogan of the Australian province of Victoria. Based on my personal experience, I can confirm that there is a grain of truth in it. I tried to think of a slogan for Brno, the city where this year’s conference will be held and I came up with „Brno, The Place to Meet“. Brno is a historical city located a bit aside of the noise of European big cities, but easily reached either from Vienna or from Prague.
Brno has its genius loci. It is a city of architecture, music, literature and universities – it is the seat of the second biggest Czech University named after the president Masaryk. There are also University of Technology and Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts located. Ones of the most remarkable people living in Brno to be mentioned were architects Ludwig Förster and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Tugendhat Villa) who had an important impact on the city architecture, the composer Leoš Janáček and the writer Milan Kundera. From the psychological point of view the most significant person to remark was, Johan Gregor Mendel, founder of genetics, who made his first discoveries in the Augustinian Abbey of St. Thomas located in Brno.
Therefore I believe that Brno is the right place for a scientific meeting providing an inspiring environment both for professional discussions and relaxed conversations.
Marek Blatný
Chair of ECP15
