Governments around the world have faced various crises in the past few years. However, these crises have not been separated and one can consider this recent period a period of polycrisis. In addition, due to spill-over effects and synergies, those crises hit governments and their policy intentions in a significant way. In some cases, planned policies had to be adjusted, in some other cases planned policies had to be suspended or even completely changed in terms of their objectives. Such circumstances have challenged governments, and unsurprisingly, many of them were not ready to deal with the polycrisis appropriately. More precisely, the polycrisis have uncovered insufficient capacities of many governments, and a volatile nature of this polycrisis have clearly tested the flexibility of policy making at various levels.A closer look at CEE region during this period of polycrisis can help us to understand seriousness of this polycrisis. Democratic backsliding, visible loss of citizens' trust in their governments, a shift from consolidated democracy and decentralisation towards attempts to use authoritarian approaches and centralisation tools, financial instability and growth of government debt, deterioration of fundamental principles like rule of law, transparency or accountability, an unprecedent success of populistic and anti-system voices, unreadiness to deal with a diverse group of hoaxes – many governments in CEE region have struggled due to all these effects and impacts, and they have not found how to effectively cope with the polycrisis yet. On this matter, it is necessary to analyse the polycrisis, its effects as well as impacts, and to understand them. Despite the fact that we still do not see the end of the polycrisis now, researchers and scholars should be leaders from the perspective of this intention because their findings can contribute to an effective capacity-building at all levels of governance.The next year conference will be focused on the polycrisis and its impacts at various levels from the perspective of governments as well as other stakeholders. Although the polycrisis is an ongoing phenomenon, research can identify not only various challenges and opportunities of the mentioned governments and other stakeholders but also the first lessons to be learnt.
 

Jacob Torfing

Jacob Torfing is an award-winning and decorated full professor in politics and institutions at Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University. He is the founder and director of the Roskilde School of Governance (previously known as the Centre for Democratic Network Governance). Recently, he was awarded the Danish degree of
Doctor Scientiarum Administrationis.

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He is a scientific expert in the fields of network governance, co-creation, public innovation, policy reform, institutional theory, and discourse analysis. He has chaired the Danish Political Science Association (DPSA), been a long-term member of the Danish Social Science Research Council and served at the Executive Committee of the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR). He has published 30 books and around 350 journal articles, book chapters and research communications that together have generated more than 29,000 Google Scholar citations (h-index 67). He appears regularly in Danish mass media as a commentator on public sector reforms and is a passionate public speaker with more than 30 public talks per year on topics such as public governance, collaborative innovation, platforms for co-creation etc.
He has been invited as visiting scholar at University of Vienna, Raboud University, University of Troms?, University of Bod?, Hong Kong University, University of Sao Paolo, University of Nagoya, University of Vermont, University of California Irvine, and University of California Berkeley (several times).
He has participated in many Danish and international research projects (total amount of external research funding exceeds 20 m. Euros and led the lion’s share of these projects.

Miroslav Beblavý

CEO of CB ESPRI, an impact investment fund and adjunct professor at Sciences Po in Paris and Hertie School in Berlin.

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Miroslav Beblavý is a Slovak investor, academic, economist, author and former politician. He is currently CEO of CB ESPRI, an impact investment fund and adjunct professor at Sciences Po in Paris and Hertie School in Berlin. He served three terms as an MP of the National Council of Slovakia (2010-2020) and State Secretary at the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Family (2002-2006). Academically, he worked as Assistant and Associate Professor of Public Policy at Comenius University in Slovakia (2006-2014), Senior Research Fellow at Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels (2010-2019) and Executive Director of Slovak Governance Institute (2001-2002, 2006-2009)