Several Team members actively participated in major European conferences throughout August and September 2025, delivering presentations and sharing research findings on regional development, political behavior, and left-behind places.
At the 64th ERSA Congress of the European Regional Science Association in Athens, Greece (26-29 August 2025), Martin Refisch presented "From Declining Regions to Rising Populism: Unraveling the Complex Link between Rural Discontent, Democratic Satisfaction, and AfD Support in Germany." The same research was subsequently presented as a poster at the ECSR 2025 of the European Consortium of Sociological Research in Cologne, Germany (3-5 September 2025).
The team made a significant contribution to the 10th EUGEO Congress 2025 in Vienna, Austria (8-11 September 2025), where multiple members presented their work: Josef Bernard delivered "Moving or Commuting to Opportunity? Interrelationships Between Spatial and Social Mobility in Left-Behind Places", Michał Konopski presented "Between rural and urban. Specificity of political behaviour in small towns of Poland", Anja Decker shared findings on "Who can bring change to left-behind places? Exploring residents' attributions of political agency in shrinking small towns", and Martin Refisch presented collaborative research on "Exploring the Electoral Geography of Right-Wing Populism: The Role of Left-Behind Regions."
At the Congress of the German Society of Sociology (DGS) in Duisburg, Germany (22-26 September 2025), Larissa Deppisch contributed two presentations: “’Green discontent’ – den Widerstand ländlicher Räume gegen die sozial-ökologische Transformation verstehen [‘Green discontent’ – understanding rural resistance to socio-ecological transformation]”, and “Jenseits der Dichotomie - Ländliche Räume zwischen Kontinuität, Wandel und Krisen [Beyond the dichotomy - Rural areas between continuity, change, and crises]“.