WCERE 2018 – 6th World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists

The 6th World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists (WCERE 2018) was a huge success with 1543 participants from 62 countries. This is a record and shows a continued strong growth in interest in environmental and resource economics in general.

There was a good growth in participation from low and middle income countries and we were able to offer 93 travel grants. 4 funded by EAERE and 89 by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). WCERE 2018 took place at the School of Business, Economics and Law between the 25th and the 29th of June 2018 in Gothenburg, Sweden and the hosting institution was the Department of Economics.

During the 5-day congress, there were 6 plenary sessions, 680 regular papers were presented, almost 70 thematic sessions took place and we were glad to have a strong presence of almost 40 policy oriented sessions. There was also a strong response from the policy community with practioners coming from the EPAs and ministries and from business and NGOs. There were poster sessions and innovations such as “egg-timers”. This together with pre-conferences, summer courses and workshops taking place right before the congress, all caters to the growing practical importance of our profession and is connected positively to the greater interest, and higher attendance numbers that characterized this congress.

The evaluation showed a record high degree of satisfaction with the whole congress, venue, program and the organization. The fact that we ourselves tried to be environmental, cut down on the plastics, pens, bags and red meat was also highly appreciated by most people.