Overview

The European Crafts Alliance (ECA) holds its Annual Conference 2026 on Thursday April 30 at Teatrino Lorenese, Firenze Fiera, Florence, Italy, with simultaneous online streaming. The half-day conference runs from 9:30 am on-site and 10:00 CET online until 13:30 CET. It is co-organised by Artex (Centre for Artistic and Traditional Tuscan Crafts) and presented in collaboration with Firenze Fiera during the 90th anniversary of MIDA, the International Handicraft Exhibition in Florence.

The conference is part of the CraftsNet project, co-funded by the European Union. Participation is free and open to the public, both in person and online. In-person attendees receive complimentary access to the MIDA fair for the duration of the conference. The event is interactive in format, using Mentimeter to gather live questions from both in-person and online audiences for a shared Q&A session with all speakers.

Focus

“Crafting Wellbeing” examines craft practices not from the perspective of cultural heritage or economic activity, but through their documented contribution to physical and mental health, rehabilitation, social inclusion, and community life. The conference marks a deliberate expansion of ECA’s previous analytical frameworks, which had addressed the craft sector’s ecosystem structure and economic contribution, into the domain of public health and social prescribing.

The central event of the conference is the presentation of a new European research report, “Crafting Health and Wellbeing,” conducted by the University of Eastern Finland for the ECA. This report provides the first substantial evidence base at European level for craft’s health-promoting effects, drawing on neuroscience, psychology, and sociological research to establish what making actually does to the people who practice it. The conference moves from this research foundation into practice, with case studies addressing clinical rehabilitation, career transition, disability inclusion, and therapeutic ceramics. It closes by asking how these individual and local examples can be integrated into public health systems at scale across Europe.

Craft practices are increasingly finding their way into rehabilitation programmes, community health initiatives, and social prescribing networks — and the conference will examine how making actually works in clinical rehabilitation, mental health, and social inclusion.
ECA Annual Conference 2026 Description

Programme

Speakers

Context: MIDA at 90

The conference is hosted within Firenze Fiera during the 90th anniversary edition of MIDA, the International Handicraft Exhibition, one of Europe’s longest-running trade and cultural events for craft. MIDA’s longevity and its Florentine context, embedded in a city whose identity is inseparable from material craft traditions, makes it a resonant setting for a conference that argues for craft’s relevance to contemporary public health rather than its preservation as heritage. In-person conference attendees receive complimentary access to the MIDA fair, creating a direct link between the conference’s arguments and the active commercial and cultural craft environment on the exhibition floor.

Audience

The conference targets craft sector professionals, educators, researchers, public health practitioners, social workers, and policy advocates working at the intersection of making, design education, and community wellbeing. Its hybrid format, free registration, and online accessibility make it open to a European-wide audience beyond the Florence venue. For those working in spatial and architectural practice with interests in therapeutic environments, social infrastructure, and the material dimensions of care, the research and case studies presented will be directly relevant.

Event Details