WAVE in Lisbon Addictions 2024

Workforce in Addictions · Valorisation in Europe

Contributing to Lisbon Addictions

Since its first edition in 2015, the Lisbon Addictions Conference (LxAddictions) has been stimulating, promoting and embracing multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder debate, showcasing leading European and international addictions research and innovative practices in the areas of monitoring, prevention, treatment and harm reduction.

The WAVE Project (Workforce in Addictions · Valorisation in Europe) has a special focus on strengthening visibility for addictions professionals in early stages of their career and/or working in traditionally under-resourced addictions service areas and sectors, and from lower income geographic locations, and providing resources to attend the conference, and learning, knowledge exchange and networking spaces.

WAVE will contribute to Lisbon Addictions 2024 edition in 2 ways:

    1. Co-producing with the WAVE CoP and LxAddictions24 organising committee a specific topical strand on addictions workforce development ‘Making WAVEs for the Addiction Workforce’.
    2. Providing financial resources in the form of up to 120 bursaries to support the attendance of European and international addictions workforce experts and professionals through a competitive awarding process of travel and conference registration grants, prioritising candidates in early stages of their career and/or working in traditionally under-resourced addictions service areas and sectors, and from lower income geographic locations.

The WAVE Track in Lisbon Addictions

WAVE Major Session:

New perspectives: AI as a tool to support the addictions workforce

In the near future, Europe, and the rest of the world, faces a potential decline in the number of addiction professionals, with probable impacts on addiction care across the intervention spectrum.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) may potentially address some of the foreseen human resource shortages, as well augmenting professional capabilities and increasing efficiency.

However, such technological synergy also sparks ethical considerations for addiction prevention, harm reduction and treatment, raising questions about how we can ensure future ethical practices in this field.

The WAVE major session will cover 3 angles related to AI as a tool for the addiction workforce, followed by an interactive panel discussion: 1) Digital Phenotyping and Using AI with Youth (Elissa Weitzman), 2) AI in the system – Large-Scale Day-To-Day Public Health Practice (Jordi Piera-Jimenez), 3) Challenges Behind AI-Supported Behavioural Addiction Treatment (Christina Todorova)

WAVE Video contest

Within the frame of the collaboration with LxAddictions24, WAVE is organising a video contest for audio-visual pieces relating to any of the main areas/ thematic tracks of the conference. A shortlisted selection of videos competing for the prizes will be shown and discussed at the conference in the ‘WAVE Cinema’.

Two types of videos are encouraged for submission:

    • Category 1 : creatively showcasing an innovative scientific, technical, or civil society work in addictions
    • Category 2 : to communicate and bring visibility to stories of impactful and insightful lived experience

 

Prizes

  • Category Prizes: 1st prizes of 550€, 2nd prizes of 400€, and 3rd prizes of 250€ will be awarded in each category.
  • LxA24 People’s Prize: A prize of 300€ for the ‘people’s choice’ will be awarded based on voting in-situ during the conference.

* Please note, the monetary prizes may be subject to withholding tax and must comply with the applicable fiscal regulations at the time of award. No video-maker will be eligible for more than one category prize (in the case of submitting multiple videos).

Video contest submission process – key dates

  1. Call for video abstracts open (videomakers describe short video – existing or still to be made): 24/10/2023 – 31/1/2024
  2. Selective invitations to submit video entries (send us your completed short video): by 18h on Wed 22/5/2024
  3. Final edits of entries (we may ask you to adjust some aspect in a technical quality check) 12/7/2024 – 31/7/2024 (dates may be subject to slight change)
  4. Judging of the video entries (judging by independent expert panels –  ranking and shortlist) Aug – Sept 2024 (exact dates TBC)
  5. Screening and discussion sessions for shortlisted films (with film-makers) + video prize awards at Lisbon Addictions Conference 23 – 25 October 2023

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Past experiences:

The WAVE Video Contest follows on from a similar activity in Lisbon Addictions 2022, organised by the Inter·GLAM Project. To see the entries and prizewinners from the previous edition, please see here.