The Editorial reports on a conference on “Harmonisation of Public Sector Accounting in Europe”, organised in Rostock by Peter Lorson and Ellen Haustein. The conference offered the opportunity to discuss different viewpoints, as well as to raise awareness for the EU-funded Erasmus+ DiEPSAm Project, aimed at developing and implementing university modules on Public Sector Accounting in Europe at five European universities. Peter and Ellen will be happy to give more information on this.

Mariannunziata Liguori also offers a review of a conference, held at Queen’s University Belfast, on “Accounting for the Public Sector at a Time of Crisis”. Topics spanned from ways in which accounting is mobilised in the identification and management of crises to decision making during severe budget restraint; from the adoption of business practices in the public sector to the understanding of accounting data by political actors; from the impact of economic and financial shocks on the sector to co-production and partnerships in the delivery of services. The conference is associated with a Special Issue of the journal Abacus: “Accounting for the Public Sector at a Time of Crisis”, edited by Noel Hyndman and Donal McKillop.

Conferences and related calls for papers are announced on page 3. Information is given about:

· The Symposium on Implementing Collaborative Governance (Palermo, Italy, 25-26 October 2018);

· The New Public Sector Seminar «Calculative practice and the shaping of public services» (Edinburgh, 8-9 November 2018);

· The La Trobe Business School Annual Public Sector Symposium (Melbourne, 5 September 2018) on the theme «Management control and risk management in the public sector».

We then complete this issue with two call for papers:

· at pages 3-4, we present the theme “Governmental accounting and public financial management reforms in Latin America”, to be guest edited by Mauricio Gómez Villegas and Andreas Bergmann on Public Money & Management (deadline for full papers September 1, 2018);

· at page 4, the attention is put on a special issue of Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, guest editors Giuseppe Grossi, Daniela Argento and Dorota Dobija, about “Governing by numbers: audit culture and contemporary tales of universities’ accountability” (deadline for full papers January 15, 2019).

Newsletter April 2018