EFPSA was born in April 1987, when students of the University of Lisbon (Portugal) invited psychology students from all over Europe to a meeting. Psychology students from 8 European countries agreed to found a European Federation of Psychology Students’ Associations: EFPSA was born!

The basic outlines of this Federation were transformed into formal statutes during the second meeting in Liege (Belgium) in April 1988. At the same time, the first long term project of EFPSA, the EUROPSYCHO-Database on education and exchange, began. In January 1989, EFPSA was registered as an international association according to the Belgian law. During the third General Assembly in April 1989 in Lund (Sweden) the federation developed its structure and started to fill this structure with contents.Also in 1989, the first meeting of the Executive Board (EB) was held in between two annual congresses and took place in Berlin. This ensured more continuous work during the whole year and better preparation of the General Assembly.

The contacts with the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA) started in July 1991 in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Since 2001, EFPSA has been an affiliate member of EFPA.

After EFPSA’s participation in the first European Student conference (which brought together about 500 students from a number of disciplines) in Liege (Belgium) in November 1990 a lot of new contacts were made, especially with Eastern European countries. During the fifth General Assembly in April 1991 in Geneva (Switzerland) EFPSA grew to 11 member countries, and the first delegation from Eastern Europe was welcomed.

In this year the idea of permanent working groups (called “task forces”) came up to enable more efficient work on projects such as EUROPSYCHO, ERASMUS, the European journal PSYSCRIPTUM, participation in conferences, educational matters etc… EFPSA since then took shape at five additional congresses held in Bergen Norway (1992), Amsterdam, The Netherlands (1993), Lancaster, UK (1994), Pula, Croatia (1995) and in Jyväskylä, Finland (1996). Beside the annual congresses several other happenings such as summerschools and seminars (Portugal, Croatia, Germany) took up more and more space within EFPSA’s activities.

EFPSA Congress History

Future Congresses:

• 2013 Turkey
• 2014 Romania