The Trust & Society Conference 2023

On July 19-20 2023, the Trust & Society network held its first international conference in Luxembourg. The Trust & Society Conference connected interdisciplinary researchers with practitioners facing a range of challenges related to the crises of trust that society is currently facing.

The conference gathered over 20 experts working on trust from 10 different countries and fields: Artificial Intelligence, leadership, religion, conflicts, education, politics, finance, and more. The goal was to discuss trust from different perspectives and analyze how it impacts each field.

The conference’s inaugural address was given by H.E. Virginia Gamba, UN Undersecretary General, who passionately presented on “Confidence Building Engagements and the Children and Armed Conflict Agenda.” The audience was honored to hear personal stories from H.E. Virginia Gamba’s field of work and ask her questions directly.

Prof. Karlijn Demasure, from St Paul University in Canada responded to SRGR Gamba’s speech and presented her research through her presentation: "Broken Promises: Power, Trust, and the Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church."

Dr. Christoper Jacobi, Prof. Brandon Vaidyanathan and Prof. Chelsea Rae Kelly from the Catholic University of America shared the quantitative results of their National Study of Catholic Priests in their presentation: "A Crisis of Trust: US Catholic Priests’ Attitudes Towards Bishops."

Input from key decision makers, including Pierre Gramegna, the current managing director of the European Stability Mechanism and Luxembourg’s former ambassador and finance minister gave his inputs during his presentation “Trust: A Key Factor in Diplomacy and Political Action.” Paul Nihoul, Professor of Law, UCLouvain and Judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union responded to Mr. Gramegna’s speech, exploring trust within the law and ethics in general, by asking the audience questions inviting everyone to think about trust in a different way.

On the second day, a diverse range of cutting-edge academic research was presented, including a talk on “AI, Employee Vulnerability, and Active Trust Management” by Prof. Antoinette Weibel of the University of St. Gallen. Prof. Simo Maršić offered insight into “Building Trust among Youth in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina,” with Prof. Epiphane Kinhoun discussing “The Credibility of Service-Learning Pedagogy in University Education: Toward a Dynamic of Trust between University and Society.”

A discussion on “Rebuilding Trust in Leadership and Institutions” featured Prof. Robert Bies of Georgetown University, Prof. Laurie Barclay (University of Guelph), and Prof. Tom Tripp  (Washington State University).

Conclusions of this research for society were drawn by a very dynamic panel discussion. The panel featured Prof. Simo Marsic, Prof. Antoinette Weibel, Prof. Karlijn Demasure, in addition to practical insight from contributors such as Françoise Thoma (CEO of BCEE), Marc Crochet (CEO of Caritas Luxembourg), and H.E. Anne Calteux (Representative of the European Commission to Luxembourg).

The conference was the inaugural event of Trust & Society – The Global Network on Trust, the starting point in working toward our goal of communicating the findings of cutting-edge trust research to the people who can use this insight in their work. This conference is another opportunity to bring people together from different backgrounds to generate fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue.

Conference recordings available here.