The WPA includes 147 psychiatric societies across 123 countries, and represents more than 250,000 psychiatrists globally. The WPA Action Plan 2023-20261-4 is grounded in the principles of the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Central to achieving better mental health is the promotion of equality, equity and justice across developmental stages, inclusivity, and transcultural awareness (EDIT), as well as maintaining excellence in mental health clinical practice, prevention and research. A key step towards achieving these goals is the regular collection and analysis of data on participants and speakers at the World Congress of Psychiatry, which enables targeted initiatives and monitoring of progress over time. Data from the 24th World Congress of Psychiatry in Mexico already indicated some positive trends towards gender balance5. Promoting diversity in professional conferences is crucial for driving innovation, fostering inclusive discussions, and ensuring that voices from a wide range of backgrounds are represented. Conferences provide essential opportunities for sharing knowledge, collaborating across cultures, and building professional networks6. They also increase the visibility of clinicians and academics, supporting recognition and career development7. Previous research has reported that the number of conferences attended predicted post-conference publications, presentations, and research activity8. In this paper we contribute to these ongoing efforts by examining diversity among participants and presenters at the 25th World Congress of Psychiatry, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in 2025 with the motto “The Role of Psychiatry in the Changing World”. The event was organized by the WPA with the Czech Psychiatric Association and the Slovak Psychiatric Association. Part of the scientific programme was the 21st Czech-Slovak Psychiatric Congress. Among the 3,427 congress attendees, 54% were women, 45% men, and 0.3% identified as non-binary. Notably, 36% were below the age of 35, and 31% were early career psychiatrists, highlighting the growing engagement of younger professionals. Most attendees worked in health care settings (73%), with the remainder working in research and academia (19%), public sector (2.5%), media and industry (1%), or other settings (4.5%). Regarding caring responsibilities, 40% reported providing care – most commonly for children under the age of 18 (24%), followed by an elderly person (9%), or a person with a disability or long-term health condition (4%) – while 60% reported no caring responsibilities. The Congress received 2,420 abstract submissions, surpassing the figures for 2024. The submitted abstracts resulted in 79 accepted symposia, 17 state-of-the-art symposia, 65 free communications, and 517 poster presentations. The program featured eight plenary sessions, eight distinguished lectures, and six specialist corner sessions. Women were more represented than men as presenters in presidential panels (67%), panel discussions (67%), distinguished lectures (63%), original sessions (60%), and free communication sessions (56%). Men were the majority of presenters in the three meet-the-expert sessions (80%), followed by the inter-organizational session, in which each organization nominated its own representative (70%), continuing medical education (CME) courses (67%), specialist corner sessions (65%), state-of-the-art symposia (61%), accepted symposia (58%), and plenary/presidential sessions (56%). They were slightly more than half in the Czech/Slovak track sessions (53%). Gendered patterns were observed in the thematic content of presentations. Women presenters were more common in sessions focusing on personality and behavioral disorders (64%), perinatal and gender-related topics (63%), and neurodevelopmental and childhood disorders (54%), while men presenters predominated in topics such as neurocognitive disorders and ageing (100%), clinical practice and treatment (71%), severe mental illness (63%), and research, neuroscience and genetics (60%). These patterns mirror broader trends observed in other disciplines, where women have been reported to deliver proportionally more non-biomedical presentations (57%), whereas men deliver more biomedical ones (61%)9. When considering speakers’ countries of origin across session types, as classified by World Bank income groups, 77% of speakers were from high-income, 11% from upper-middle-income, 12% from lower-middle-income, and fewer than 1% from low-income countries, highlighting the ongoing need to address systemic barriers to global participation. A previous systematic review identified the main barriers faced by attendees from low- and middle-income countries, including high travel costs, visa restrictions, and lower acceptance rates for congress submissions10. Addressing these challenges is essential to achieving the WPA's vision of global collaboration. Notably, a total of 42% of the speakers in the original sessions, specifically designed for early career psychiatrists, were from non-high-income countries. These sessions include a range of innovative and interactive formats, such as clinical case discussions, the WPA 3-min competition and the WPA quiz. This diversity of participants fosters inclusivity, cross-cultural learning, and the exchange of ideas across different contexts and health systems. When analyzing country of origin by topic, speakers from high-income countries predominated in sessions addressing personality and behavioral disorders (78%); mood, anxiety and stress disorders (70%), society, culture and human rights (67%), severe mental illness (60%), and clinical practice and treatment (56%). In contrast, there was a greater representation from non-high-income countries in sessions on health systems and service delivery (83%), and on physical health and comorbidities (67%). Previous research has shown that mental health research priorities in low- and middle-income countries include health systems, social science, burden and risk factors11. The 25th World Congress of Psychiatry reflects the ongoing efforts and continued progress in the WPA's commitment to systematically collect, analyze and report diversity data, moving beyond gender to encompass socioeconomic and geographic inclusion. The WPA has taken a leading role in systematically collecting and reporting diversity data across congresses, contributing to transparency and actionable benchmarking in global psychiatry. Publishing this paper represents a further step in that process, contributing to the dissemination of evidence and good practice across the field. Promoting representation across countries and professional stages enriches dialogue, improves cultural understanding, and strengthens the global mental health community. By continuing to systematically collect and report diversity data of participants and speakers, future WPA congresses can track progress, identify gaps, and guide policies that advance equity, justice, inclusivity, and transcultural collaboration in global psychiatry. The 26th World Congress of Psychiatry will be held in Stockholm, Sweden on September 23-26, 2026, with the motto “Guided by Compassion, Grounded in Science: Psychiatry for our Time”.
Costa et al. (Fri,) studied this question.