September 2024—The European Federation of Psychologists' Assocations (EFPA) has launched a new Digitalisation Expert Reference Group.

Founded in 1981, the European Federation of Psychologists´ Associations AISBL (EFPA) is the umbrella organisation for national psychologists’ organisations in Europe. EFPA’s non-profit purpose is to develop psychology, contribute to society, and serve psychologists.

The group, consisting of 8 nominated members and a board liaison, contains diverse expertise in topics such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), experiential technology (i.e. virtual reality, mixed reality, the metaverse) and communications and social media technologies.

While the intersection of psychology and technology has always been relevant, the need for psychology's role in helping to inform policy, as well as research and practice, has become increasingly apparent. This year, for example, the EU's AI Act (1) was passed by the European Parliament. Within days of being established, the group has worked to contribute to the European Commission guidelines on the protection of minors in relation to the EU Digital Services Act 2024 (2).

The role of the group will be to assist EFPA's board in offering expert opinion on matters related to technology. This will include responding to calls for comment, in addition to proactive policy and advocacy work to ensure that the voice of European psychology is well heard in the development and deployment of technology.

While naturally including an interest in health technology, the group's focus will extend broadly throughout all forms of societal impact that arise from our interaction with technology. As one of the next steps the group will work to draw together a shortlist of central key topics areas, which will then be used to support European level advocacy work.

To achieve this, the group will also work with EFPA's board to draw on the expertise of, and offer support related to digitalisation to EFPA's Working Groups (3). EFPA broadly will provide updates to, and seek input from, the organisation's member associations (4) to ensure that European psychology is developing an effective digital strategy on both local and regional levels.

Regular updates will be released as work progresses, and further information can be found on the new Digitalisation section of the EFPA website (5).

EFPA Digitalisation Expert Reference Network members (2024-2025):

• Austria: John Haas
• Belgium: Tom Van Daele
• Cyprus: Maria Karekla
• Denmark: Niels Peter Rygaard
• Germany: Markus Langer
• Italy: Davide Marocco
• Slovenia: David Gosar
• UK: Ian Baker
• EFPA Board Liaison: John Francis Leader

For further details and references visit the EFPA newsroom: https://www.efpa.eu/efpa-launches-new-digitalisation-expert-reference-g…