Inspire, Inform, Activate
In this nature of these three objectives was also the last 1. Central Europen Conference in Finance and Economics - CEFE 2015 held on 30.09.–01.10.2015 in the Teaching and Training Facility of the Technical University in Herľany.

The conference provided to the scientists, academics, practioners and many other profesionals in the field of finance, economics and regional sciences a space for presentation, analysis and discussion of a wide spectrum of of theoretical and practical actual problems, current trends and future challenges in the economic development of the EU countries.

Altogether 120 national and international participants have attended the CEFE 2015 conference mostly from Czech republic, Poland, Hungary, Italy and Germany. Opening ceremony was started by assoc.prof. Michal Šoltés, PhD. the dean of the faculty, who has moderated also the following plennary session that was held in two blocks. During the first block speakers: doc. Mgr. Grzegorz Michalski, PhD. (Poland), prof. Dr. Alessandro Figus (Italy), doc. Vladimír Rogalewicz, CSc. (Czech republic), prof. Dr. Martin Užík (Germany) a Mgr. Iveta Nagyová, PhD. (Slovakia) held their interesting speeches. Their speeches started a great discussion to several problems that were then adressed in the individual sessions. In the second plenary block held on 30.09.2015 in the evening hours speakers: prof. Ing. Juraj Sipko, PhD., MBA (Slovakia) a doc. Mgr. Martin Kahanec, PhD., M.A. (Hungary), focused their speeches to the global inequality at the World and European level, culminating imigration crisis, in Europe and its impact on the labour market.

During the four individual sessions had the participans the oportunity to present theis contributions and disscuss relevant topics in a moderated disscussions in the field of finance, investments, business, entrepreneurships, startups, of management of health care. A poster section was also present during the individual sessions.

An spectacular conference diversion was the eruption of the Herlany geyser between 16:00 and 16:30, that has drawn the attention of all the participants and provided an enjoyable event. The great moment was captured by a common picture.

As a part of the conference the Young Scientists competitive session intended for PhD. students. A networking environment was created for the student to ease the share of knowledge and the results of their research with other scientists. This session provided to the winners also an financial reward as a small motivation for further research. The head of evaluators´ commission doc. Ing. Tomáš Želinský, PhD. then awarded the three best presentations: Ing. Bibiána Nováková (EkF TUKE) for the second price, Ing. Tatiana Bieliková (Faculty of Economics UMB) and Ing. Janka Pálfyová (EkF TUKE) for third place. The first place was not awarded. Awarded contributions were then publicly communicated at the beggining of the social event by the dean of the faculty.

A space for informal networking and a place to relax with interesting programme was the social event of the conference, where the dean of the faculty has also performed with the folk group Čarnica.

Based on the feedback of the participants can be concluded that the conference has fulfiled its purpose: has inspired to create new areas of research, active programms and strategies for knowledge implementation into praxis, it has informed about actual economic challenges, problems and potential solutions in the contect of national strategies and activated all the relevant forms of scientific cooperation in connection to praxis and innovation potential creation necessary for increasing the competitiveness of the EU countries.

We believe tht all the next CEFE conferences will be at least as successful as the one in 2015.

Autori: doc. Ing. Beáta Gavurová, PhD., MBA.,
Ing. Lucia Mihóková, PhD.
Source: HALO TUKE: Štvrťročník Technickej univerzity v Košiciach, 2-2015/2016, online: http://www.tuke.sk/tuke/halo-tu/halotu201520162