The conference organizers are the Institute for History-Sarajevo, Croatian Institute for History-Zagreb, Institute for National History-Skopje, Institute for Balkan Studies of the Bulgarian Science Academy-Sofia, Institute for Modern History-Ljubljana, Research Center for Humanistic Science, Hungarian Academy of Sciences-Budapest, and the Institute for East and Southeast European Studies-Regensburg.
The goal of the conference is to recognize the causes, and the political, social and economic repercussions of World War One in the context of European and Balkan history based on new findings.
The intention of the organizers is for the conference in Sarajevo to become a central scientific meting in Europe about the beginning of World War One.
In addition to re-examining major political issues, the conference will focus on ordinary people, the life of ordinary soldiers and the development of society in individual European countries affected by the war.
The results of national historiography and its role in creating and strengthening national states will be seen, as well as ways in which the First World War treated the educational process and memorial culture.
The Sarajevo Institute for History emphasized that this would be exclusively an academic conference, a place for dialogue without any political goals and the impact of any political or state power structures.
116 academics from 26 countries confirmed their participation, and those are: Croatia, BiH, Germany, Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia, Austria, Slovenia, Ukraine, Great Britain, Poland, Finland, Czech Republic, France, USA, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Slovakia, Turkey, Russia, Canada, Greece, Ireland, and Switzerland.