About CASSANDRA - cassandraconference

CASSANDRA 2026, A MAJOR INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Climate change, health, mass migration, conflict and gender inequality are five strongly interrelated crises which demand understanding, awareness and a broad, global approach to the design and implementation of solutions.

Awareness leads to concern, concern leads to engagement, engagement leads to consensus and consensus leads to the continuity of potentially effective strategies.

But awareness must be based on knowledge, engagement must be the route to solutions and consensus must be founded on an understanding of society’s scientific and technological capacity to support what has often been considered as simply a socio-political debate.

Technology centres and research institutions in Europe and Africa are beginning to recognise that through their scientific and technical investigations they have a social responsibility to work in close collaboration and cooperation with society as a whole, to join forces and unite the Quintuple Helix composed of the world of research together with the public sector, the private sector, the arts and the citizen.

Building on the success of the two past editions of CASSANDRA celebrated in 2021 and in 2023, this conference intends to reflect the progress of the CASSANDRA Programme which is based on three pillars; the promotion of the local community as the true implementer of global climate-based strategies, the creation of a network of Science Embassies, predisposed to offer the benefits of their knowledge and expertise to local communities around the globe whenever such input is required and the creation of a series of courses designed to make scientists aware of the socio-political importance of their work, whilst teaching them how to explain complex concepts in a manner that proves accessible to all social sectors.

In this way, the CASSANDRA Programme and the CASSANDRA Conference seeks to provide tangible support and answers to those who suffer the dramatic consequences of a pathway which begins with climate change and which leads to health issues, migration, the multiplication of the effects of armed conflict and a worsening of gender inequality.

ABOUT CASSANDRA 2026 CONFERENCE

TARGET AUDIENCE:

Researchers in Climate Change, Migration, Health, Conflict and/or Gender, Policy Makers at a Supranational, National, Regional and Municipal level, Multinational, National and SME representatives of the Private Sector located in Africa and the Mediterranean Region, India, South-East Asia, Central and South America, Non-Governmental Organisations and Interest groups with a strong connection to the issues of Climate Change, Health, Migration and/or Gender, Citizen Awareness groups from different parts of Africa and the Mediterranean, India, South-East Asia, Central and South America, National and International Press Representatives from all over the world.

THE PILLARS OF CASSANDRA:

CASSANDRA 2026 will review the progress of the CASSANDRA Programme, coordinated by EURECAT with the support of over 200 supranational administrations, NGOs and research centres. It addresses four key socio-political consequences of climate change: public health issues, gender inequality, migration, and the exacerbation of the effects of armed conflict. The programme is the identification, development and nurturing of at least 300 local community organisations over a four-year period, in the Mediterranean, Africa and after 2026, India, South-East Asia and the Americas.

There are, for the period up to November 2025, Pilot Local Climate Forums in Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, Palestine, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo , Uganda, South Africa, Libya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and the Euro-Mediterranean region.

CASSANDRA chooses to work in highly challenging scenarios, to demonstrate:

1. The importance of local people initiating and implementing community actions if supranational ambitions are to be translated into tangible results.

3. The necessity of a robust capacity to establish a direct link between supranational, international and national entities and local people willing to fight for their homes, their environment, and their future through effective dissemination of the local community actions’ successes and failures and the enabling of face-to-face dialogue between the different political and social actors.

2. The importance of local people initiating and implementing community actions if supranational ambitions are to be translated into tangible results.

4. By directly engaging with existing social activists and community-driven initiatives, CASSANDRA makes the citizen involvement process cheaper, simpler, and more effective. Rather than creating artificial communities or external projects, the programme aligns with the needs, ideas, leadership, and implementation capacity of the local communities affected by climate change. This ensures that actions are sustainable and self-owned by the communities. Researchers, policy makers and data collectors instead of constituting artificial instigators of temporary actions become the beneficiaries of a far more knowledgeable and genuinely engaged group of citizen scientists.

PRINCIPAL OBJECTIVES OF CASSANDRA 2026

1. To further establish and promote an enhanced awareness of the role of local community initiatives in addressing climate-based sociopolitical issues.

2. To demonstrate how a closer collaboration between scientific and technological institutions (Science Embassies), citizens and supranational administrations through permanent dialogue and consultation is a proven concept.

3. The global promotion of the training of scientists and technologists from the very beginning of their academic training and throughout their careers to acquire the skills to communicate their knowledge and exoertise in an accessible way to non-scientific sectors of the community.

4. To ensure a closer collaboration between scientific and technological institutions (Science Embassies), citizens and supranational administrations through permanent dialogue and consultation, resulting in global strategy being more relevant to those who suffer the consequences of the major crises of the 21st Century.

5. To illustrate the fact that the socio-political effects of climate change can no longer be ignored, nor treated individually but rather as a complex interrelationship.