Welcome to ESPAnet’s 18th Annual and first ONLINE Conference which is hosted by the Social Policy and Social Work Team of the KU Leuven Centre for Sociological Research (Belgium). For the first time in its existence, the ESPAnet Annual Conference will be held online. This is to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and to respond to the various, perhaps longer-lasting, health, logistical and financial risks and challenges it poses for our colleagues from all over Europe.