Welcome to the Early Language Learning Research Association (ELLRA).

It is a great honour to welcome you as the newly elected Chair of ELLRA. Whether you are already a member of our community or are visiting our website for the first time, I hope this gives you a sense of who we are, what we value, and where we hope to go together over the coming years.

By way of introduction, I am Victoria Murphy, Professor of Applied Linguistics, and I have spent more than three decades researching and working with young language learners in a wide range of educational contexts. Throughout my career, I have been continually inspired by the creativity, curiosity and resilience of children learning languages, and by the dedication of the researchers and practitioners seeking to understand and support that learning. It is therefore a genuine privilege to have been elected Chair at our Annual General Meeting, held during the Second ELLRA Conference at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in June 2026.

The elections in Barcelona also brought several new colleagues onto the Executive Committee, creating a new team that is enthusiastic, committed and excited about the opportunities ahead. Together, we look forward to serving our members and building on the exceptional work that has already established ELLRA as a vibrant and respected international research community.

Before looking ahead, however, it is important to acknowledge those who made all of this possible. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to our outgoing Chair, Sandie Mourão, and to every member of ELLRA's inaugural Executive Committee. Founding an international scholarly association is no small achievement. Through their vision, leadership and tireless commitment, they built ELLRA from the ground up, creating an inclusive, intellectually stimulating and genuinely collaborative community for everyone interested in early language learning research. All of us who benefit from ELLRA today owe them an enormous debt of gratitude, and we are committed to building on the remarkable foundations they have laid.

As we begin this next chapter, our aim is not to change what makes ELLRA special, but to strengthen and extend it. We want to create even more opportunities for members to connect, collaborate and learn from one another by enhancing our conferences, webinars and online activities throughout the year. We are equally committed to broadening ELLRA's international reach, welcoming researchers from an ever wider range of countries, languages and educational contexts so that our Association reflects the diversity of the communities and learners we seek to understand.

Supporting the next generation of researchers will remain central to our mission. We will continue to expand opportunities for doctoral students and early career researchers through mentoring, networking and professional development, while also promoting open science practices that make our research more transparent, rigorous, accessible and impactful. We hope to strengthen partnerships across disciplines and across borders, and to foster closer dialogue not only among researchers but also with teachers, parents, policymakers and others whose work shapes the language learning experiences of young children.

Our field is evolving rapidly in response to changing educational priorities, technological developments and increasingly multilingual societies. These changes bring both challenges and exciting new opportunities. ELLRA has an important role to play in bringing together diverse perspectives, supporting high-quality research, and ensuring that evidence continues to inform educational policy and practice around the world.

Above all, I hope ELLRA will continue to be known as a welcoming, inclusive and generous community—one in which experienced researchers, doctoral students and those new to the field all feel that they belong and that their contributions are valued. The strength of our Association has always rested on the enthusiasm, expertise and collegiality of its members.