The largest annual conference in Central and Eastern Europe: three days each September in a Polish mountain resort, drawing more than 6,000 heads of government, ministers, executives, researchers and journalists from around 60 countries to debate the geopolitical and economic future of the region.
Economic Forum Karpacz, in Polish Forum Ekonomiczne, is an annual three-day conference held every September in Karpacz, a mountain resort in Lower Silesia, Poland. Organised by the Foundation Institute for Eastern Studies since 1992, it is the largest recurring political-economic conference in Central and Eastern Europe, run on an open-registration model rather than by invitation.
8 to 10 September 2026, the 35th edition. Hotel Gołębiewski conference centre, Karpacz, in the Karkonosze Mountains, Lower Silesia, Poland.
Fundacja Instytut Studiów Wschodnich, the Foundation Institute for Eastern Studies, a Warsaw-based non-profit founded by Zygmunt Berdychowski. Its mission is political and economic cooperation between EU member states and Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The forum was founded in 1992 and ran in Krynica-Zdrój through its 28th edition in 2019 before relocating to Karpacz from 2020.
6,000+ participants (organiser figure), with close to 1,000 of them foreign guests from more than 60 countries, per Polish press agency reporting on the 2026 edition. Strongest foreign delegations historically come from Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltic states and Germany. Heads of state, prime ministers, foreign ministers, senior EU officials, corporate CEOs, think-tank directors, academic economists, journalists and a dedicated youth delegation of students and young professionals. More than 150 business and institutional partners co-produce sessions.
The full 2026 roster is published progressively on the official site in the weeks before the event and was not complete as of this check. Confirmed: Krzysztof Gawkowski, Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs, named as a Top Speaker on the official 35th edition event page.
The 2026 programme lists a "Digital Forum" among its eight thematic tracks, replacing "Cybersecurity Forum" from the initial announcement; cybersecurity content continues under the renamed track. A Polish-Chinese Forum side track was announced on 3 August 2026. Press accreditation opened 6 August 2026 as a free, two-stage online process. Theme for 2026: "Architecture of a New Order: Stability in Times of Change."
Eight thematic forums, each with its own programme committee: Artificial Intelligence, Economy, Healthcare, Society, Digital, International Politics and Security, Regions, and Sustainable Development. More than 500 debates, panels, workshops and plenary sessions run in parallel across the three days. The programme opens with the Report on the State of the Economy in Poland and Central and Eastern European Countries, produced with the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH). Each evening closes with a gala awarding Person of the Year, Company of the Year and Non-Governmental Organisation of the Year.
Plenary sessions, parallel thematic panels across eight forums running simultaneously, workshops, author meetings and film screenings. Open registration, not invitation-only: general delegate access is not restricted by the presence of heads of state, though high-security sessions are separated from the general programme.
A dedicated youth track integrating students and young professionals into the main programme. A Polish-Chinese Forum side track, newly announced for 2026. Cultural programming: author meetings, film screenings, and an evening gala with the Person of the Year, Company of the Year and NGO of the Year awards.
Not publicly listed as of this check. Registration runs through the official portal; Polish press reporting on the 2026 edition notes lower registration fees applied only until the end of July, implying a higher standard rate is now in effect, but no figure has been published.
No public call-for-speakers process is documented. Speaking slots are arranged by the organiser and its 150-plus business and institutional partners; the roster is published progressively rather than opened to submission.
Not publicly documented. More than 150 business and institutional partners co-produce sessions and exhibit, but the application path to become one is not published on the official site as checked.
Not disclosed as a named list. The organiser states more than 150 business and institutional partners co-produce sessions, without publishing their names on the pages checked.
Not established from a named sponsor list, since none is published. By attendee composition, three groups dominate: national and regional governments across Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe; large Polish and international corporates sending CEOs and board members; and academic and think-tank institutions, reflected in the Warsaw School of Economics co-produced opening report.
Through a dedicated press process on the official site; accreditation for the 2026 edition opened 6 August 2026, described in Polish coverage as free and run in two online stages. The organiser does not publicly disclose accredited journalist counts.
Three recurring angles. The "Eastern Davos" framing: Italian news agency ANSA covered the 2025 edition as "the Davos of the East" and "the most important conference in Central and Eastern Europe," reporting more than 6,000 participants and 500-plus events including six plenary sessions. The future-of-Europe agenda: the same reporting centres on the forum's plenary theme rather than its scale. Regular international financial-press presence: per the forum's own record and independent reference sources, coverage has included Bloomberg, Reuters, AFP, TASS, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Die Welt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Figaro and Euronews.
Independent by most named outlets. ANSA, Bloomberg, Reuters, the Financial Times and the other named international outlets are independent news organisations covering the event as journalism, not as declared media partners; no official_media_partners list is on record for this fiche the way one exists for some other events in this corpus, so there is no known case here of a cited outlet also being a paid partner. The volume and outlet count are not independently audited beyond what each outlet's own byline confirms.
Practitioners seeking technical trade-show content, a startup pitch platform or deep single-industry workshops: the format is a broad, cross-sector policy conference, not a vertical trade show. Anyone wanting a small, closed-door peer setting: with 6,000-plus attendees, Karpacz is built for volume, not exclusivity.
Runs 8 to 10 September 2026, days after the Ambrosetti Forum at Cernobbio (4 to 6 September) and ahead of the Vienna Economic Forum later in the autumn. Against WEF Davos, Karpacz trades curation for scale: open registration and several thousand delegates rather than an invitation list, oriented specifically to the Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European agenda rather than a global one.
No separate regional editions. The foundation organises other, distinct events through the year, including the European Congress of Local Governments in Mikołajki, but the Economic Forum itself runs once a year, in Karpacz since 2020 and in Krynica-Zdrój for the 28 editions before that.
Polish and English, with simultaneous interpretation on major plenary sessions. Panels on domestic Polish policy, regional development or cultural topics may run in Polish only.
Not publicly disclosed. No livestream, hybrid attendance option or session replay is described on the pages checked.
Not publicly disclosed. The registration portal was open as of the 2026 check; no refund or cancellation terms were found on the pages checked.
Not publicly disclosed. No accessibility statement was found on the pages checked.
Karpacz sits in the Karkonosze Mountains, about 100 kilometres south-west of Wrocław. Nearest major airport: Wrocław Copernicus Airport, then train to Jelenia Góra followed by bus or taxi, or a direct car transfer of about 90 minutes. Hotel Gołębiewski itself has 880 rooms and a dedicated conference centre under a multi-year hosting agreement with the foundation.
Because scale is the point, not a side effect. Karpacz seats several thousand delegates against the roughly 250 at Cernobbio's Ambrosetti Forum precisely because it is built to be a temperature check on an entire region's political and business class at once, not a curated small room. The trade-off is depth: with 500-plus debates running in parallel across eight tracks, no single delegate sees more than a fraction of the programme, which is the opposite compromise from a closed-door forum where everyone shares the same room.
A track renamed from "Cybersecurity Forum" to "Digital Forum" is not just a label change: it signals the organiser folding a narrower security brief into a wider digital-economy frame, which is exactly the kind of scope drift a reader comparing 2025 and 2026 programmes would otherwise miss. Track names are a weak signal individually, but a renamed track combined with a brand-new Polish-Chinese side track suggests the 2026 programme is actively being reshaped this year, not simply repeated from the template.
Official site: forum-ekonomiczne.pl. Registration portal: economicforum.pl/rejestracja-forum-ekonomiczne. LinkedIn: pl.linkedin.com/company/eastern-institute. X: @Economic_Forum_. Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Forum_(in_Poland).