Presidential Address
From time to time it is good to look back. At present, Belgian psychology enjoys a thriving research community in psychological science, with lots of exciting findings and initiatives. However, few of us realize that this situation is very recent. Up to 20 years ago, the position of Belgian psychology in the world was very modest, as can be seen from Figure 1. Whereas up to 1992 the number of articles was well below 100 per year, in 2008 it has risen to over 600 (although it looks like we will have difficulty keeping up the pace in 2009!).
Figure 1: number of articles published by Belgian Psychology Researchers in the Web of Science (up to May 2009)
Probably even more important is the number of citations made to our work. As can be seen in Figure 2, these are healthy as well, meaning that Belgian psychologists not only publish more but also see their work used more often by other researchers.

Figure 2: number of citations to the articles published by Belgian Psychology Researchers in the Web of Science (up to May 2009)
The increase of psychology research in Belgium is in line with a higher share of publications from non-American countries. A look at Table 1 shows that the share of USA publications in the Web of Science has declined from two thirds in 1975 to less than half in 2005. On the other hand, Table 1 also shows that even though Belgium is doing well (certainly when the size of the population is taken into account), there is still some headway to be made relative to some of our neighboring countries.

Table 1: Number of articles published by authors from different countries in ISI Web of Science, plus the share in the total number of articles published. The last column corrects for differences in number of inhabitants, by dividing the number of articles published in 2005 by the size of the population (in millions).
All in all, these are very rewarding and exciting times to be President of the Belgian Association for Psychological Sciences, because it means that we are in a better shape than ever to fulfil our major roles. These are:
- The organization of an annual conference for Belgian researchers to share their latest findings and for young researchers to give their first “real” presentation.
- To continue and improve Psychologica Belgica, the only journal dedicated to scientific psychology in Belgium.
- To support young researchers by organizing a Best Thesis Award for the best master’s thesis and by providing best poster awards at the annual conference.
- To inform Belgian psychologists about talks, seminars, conferences, job openings, etc. This is done via our mailing list.
- To be the national and international representative of Belgian psychology research and to take part in the organization of joint initiatives.
Needless to say, your help in any of these is very much appreciated. Please distribute this information among your colleagues and students. And if you have an idea or a comment, please do not hesitate to contact me.