Since 2019, the HEPP conferences have provided a space to explore themes related to populist mobilisation, polarisation, and the dynamics of emotional engagement in various political and mediatised contexts. Our thematic core remains the same this year, and the HEPP6 conference will also include a special focus on grievance politics and democratic governance, the main topic of the
The first HEPP conference was held in 2019 in connection with the now defunct Helsinki Summer School, where eventual HEPP members both taught and participated in courses on discourse analysis and populism. While this event was mainly geared at early career scholars, our conferences have since grown continuously and now provide a space for hundreds of academics at all career stages to gather on a regular basis. HEPP2 was held entirely online in 2021, and since HEPP3 in 2022, all of our conferences have been completely hybrid. We are very proud to keep our conferences accessible to scholars from around the globe who would otherwise not be able to fund their travel to Helsinki.
The HEPP4 conference was held at the University of Helsinki 11-13 December 2023, with a special symposium day at the
HEPP5, took place on 4-7 March 2025. As always, the event brought together scholars working on populist mobilisation, rhetoric, and logics across the world. It drew particularly on the research group’s work on the Social Contract in the
We hope to see you at HEPP6 and at our future events!