In September 2003, the biannual conference series ‘Communities and Technologies (C&T)’ started with a meeting in Amsterdam attracting some 350 participants. Almost at the same time, the more policy, advocacy and practice-oriented Community Informatics (CI) series of conferences began in Prato, Italy in 2002, along with an online email network and the Journal of Community Informatics. It is time to cross fertilize these discussions and to identify convergences, overlaps, divergences and common paths, as well as challenges for future research, advocacy, policy and practice.

We cordially invite submissions to the Seventh International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T 2015), hosted from 27 to 30 June by the University of Limerick, Ireland. This biennial meeting serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating research on the complex connections between communities – both physical and virtual – and information and communication technologies. This seventh edition of the conference will mark a stronger opening toward Community Informatics work.
The conference will be co-sponsored by the Journal of Community Informatics (http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej). The goal is to revitalize the academic discussion with a new format in order to make the academic discourse more relevant for practice. The organisers hope to widen the base of relevant case studies, and at the same time, strengthen the reflection regarding these practice-based cases.

C&T 2015 welcomes participation from researchers, designers, educators, industry, and students from the many disciplines and perspectives bearing on the interaction between community and technology, including architecture, arts, business, design, economics, education, engineering, ergonomics, information technology, geography, health, humanities, law, media and communication studies, and social sciences. The conference program will include competitively selected, peer-reviewed papers, as well as pre-conference workshops and tutorials, a doctoral consortium, and invited keynote speakers.

We look forward to welcoming you to an exciting conference in Limerick, a vibrant university city on the west coast of Ireland!

Gabriela Avram
Conference Chair