The largest conference exploring innovation and global trends in the postal and delivery sector
Open call for submissions
We warmly invite the academic, business, and regulatory community engaged in the postal, delivery, and digital services sectors to submit proposals for the 34th Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics, scheduled for 6–8 May 2026 in Cologne, Germany.
For more than thirty years, the Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics has been the annual meeting point where academics, regulators, policy-makers and industry leaders come together to discuss the forces reshaping the postal and delivery sectors. What began as a scholarly workshop in the early 1990s has grown into the sector’s premier global event, now attracting participants from every region and discipline.
Each edition is hosted in a different international city — recent gatherings took place in Gdańsk (2023), Berne (2024) and Limassol (2025) — underscoring the event’s commitment to engaging with a global audience and diverse local postal ecosystems.
Every year, the conference encourages original research through an open call for papers; selected contributions are published each year in a peer-reviewed volume with Springer, giving scholars a high-visibility outlet and practitioners an evidence-based reference.
Beyond its academic sessions, the Conference also features hands-on activities such as the UPU Innovation Challenge, an intensive hackathon where interdisciplinary teams tackle live datasets to prototype AI-driven solutions for operational efficiency, customer experience and digital inclusion.
The Conference is one of the largest global gatherings of scholars, regulators and business leaders working at the intersection of postal operations, parcel logistics and the wider digital economy. Organised by the European University Institute’s Centre for a Digital Society and—since 2024—co-hosted with the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the event now benefits from the 150-year-old UN agency’s network of 192 national postal operators.
The Conference blends rigorous academic debate with actionable policy dialogue. Sessions explore the full spectrum of postal-delivery challenges, including (but not limited to) universal-service obligations and funding, competition and merger control, last-mile regulation, sustainability, and the disruptive impact of AI, blockchain and cybersecurity.
Editions
34
Countries
30
Global participants per edition
100+
Books published
5
Support the Conference
We invite organisations that share our commitment to evidence-based postal and delivery policy to become donors of the Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics. Contributions will help the Centre for a Digital Society and the Universal Postal Union to keep convening the world’s foremost scholars, regulators and industry leaders, to publish cutting-edge research and to support the next generation of logistics innovators.
Thanks to our donors, we can keep providing a neutral forum where scholars, regulators and industry practitioners can exchange research and best practices, strengthening delivery networks that are resilient, inclusive and sustainable.
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