The International Conference on Social Representations (CIRS) has its origins in the meeting of Serge Moscovici and Wolfgang Wagner at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, meeting in which they decide to convene a conference in Ravello, Italy, for 1992, as well as start the journal Papers on Social Representations and create a research archive on social representations (Wagner, 2022). It should be mentioned that Augusto Palmonari, Pina Boggi Cavallo and Fran Elejabarrieta (Moscovici, 1993) supported the conference in Ravello.

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In Ravello, the decision was made to establish a biannual meeting that brings together researchers from different parts of the world, with a common interest in the study of social representations. Likewise, it is agreed that its realization has an alternation between countries of Europe and other continents, with a particular importance of Latin America. According to Wagner (2020), this initiative promoted the international visibility of the Theory of Social Representations and allowed academics to organize themselves around themes and establish transnational research groups. Finally, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was designated as the venue for the 1994 CIRS.

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It is noteworthy that the last CIRS was held under special conditions due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Initially, the designated venue was Athens, Greece, and the conference was to be held in 2020, but the pandemic forced the event to be rescheduled for 2021. This year, confinement was maintained in most countries, which prevented it from being held face-to-face manner. Faced with this new circumstance, REMOSCO, with the support of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Paris and the collaboration of Greek researchers, decided to convene the conference online. The response of a good number of participants to this initiative evidenced the validity and importance of the CIRS for the social sciences and related fields.