The 4^th International Conference “Well-being in the Information Society (WIS 2012) – Exploring the Abyss of Inequalities” will take place on 22-24 August 2012 in Turku, Finland.The conference is organised by University of Turku – Turku School of Economics and Baltic Region Healthy Cities Association. Visit the Conference website for the programme, registration and more information!

Nearly 150 participants from Belarus, Lithuania and Finland took part in the 8th International Belarus-Lithuania Forum and the 3rd International Belarus-Finland Economic Forum held in Grodno on 18-19 April. The event was organized by the Embassy of Belarus in Lithuania jointly with the Economy Ministry of Belarus and the Grodno oblast executive committee as well as Belarusian, Lithuanian and Finnish business associations and NGOs.

Representatives of WHO Healthy Cities from all around the Europe met on the Annual Business and Technical Conference held in St Petersburg, Russia, on 14-16 June 2012. Around 100 cities, 30 National Networks, numerous health promotion organizations, politicians and experts were present. The conference’s main theme was: Health and well-being: from an early start in life to healthy ageing. The conference provided technical guidance on how to operationalize the work on the life-course approach from early life to healthy ageing and explored and shared solutions and approaches that work.

Empowerment and marginalization were the main themes when the Finnish Healthy Cities Network (Terve kunta) met in Turku on 5-6 June 2012. So called ‘’Areal Welfare Indicator’’ was presented by Risto Kaikkonen from Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). As there is a constant need for evidence-based policy making in the cities, the newly developed indicator can help in planning the municipal actions.