From 2 to 5 September 2026, Zagreb hosted the international academic conference “2026 Annual Meeting of the Gypsy Lore Society and Conference on Romani Studies,” which brought together scholars and researchers from around the world. The conference was organised by the Union of Roma in the Republic of Croatia “KALI SARA,” the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb, and the Institute for Migration Research.

As part of the conference, the exhibition “The History of Romani Studies in Croatia” opened at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, tracing the development of scholarly research on Roma in Croatia from the late eighteenth century to the present.

Dr George Damian Mocanu, a researcher at the Romanian Academy’s European Centre for Ethnic Studies, represented the Centre at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Gypsy Lore Society in Zagreb, presenting a paper entitled “The Abolition of Slavery in the Romanian Principalities in Global Context: Gradual Emancipation and Reform.”