Welcome to Vilnius, EAA 22nd Annual Meeting, to those who are attending and those who could not attend the conference. I am sure that the great work of the local organizers, Scientific Committee and EAA Committees during the last couple of years, will be reverted into a successful meeting.

Vilnius 2016 will become a significant opportunity for analysis on how current events are likely to affect us as archaeologists and as an organization. The sharpness of the time being is clearly reflected in the fact that, I am sure, this last year every individual member of the EAA has been directly affected one way or another by the happenings that have shaken the different corners of our continent. Thus, the question is how we can think and do Archaeology in these contexts, how we can positively contribute to them from our archaeological practice. Vilnius 2016 will provide EAA with an important opportunity to consider the current challenges we as archaeologists and European citizens face, and to revise what EAA as European organization has to offer towards a future for union in diversity in a Europe that must be built upon solidarity, trust, openness and the trans-national borders.

Moreover, Vilnius 2016 will be an occasion to renew and reinforce our links with Eastern European Archaeology, to chart the role of Eastern Europe (Baltic area in particular) in the development of Western Europe, as a meeting place between East and West and with connections to the Middle East and Asia.

Further on, Vilnius 2016 will be an important year for our organisation and members to activate a major process of strategic reflection. The framework proposal for the strategic development of the EAA has been just distributed to members. Based on it, we will start to decide in Vilnius the future of EAA sustainable growth and the reinforcement of improved membership engagement, participation and services. The final aim of this strategy is to place EAA and European Archaeology at the forefront of current contribution to social and cultural debate and to society, for the benefit of our members and those communities we serve.

Felipe Criado-Boado, EAA president, on the behalf of EAA Executive Board and Committees