On the 9th of March 2023, the Programme Commission (PCOM) hosted its first virtual meeting of the year to discuss the last updates of the Commission. The conversation was focused on the roles of the new PCOM members, the latest updates on projects and initiatives supported by PCOM, and the ICA Abu Dhabi Congress planning.  
For the newly elected members this session was their first meeting with the ongoing PCOM members and guests from the ICA membership and staff. It was the opportunity to start discussing further their new roles within the PCOM ecosystem and the overall ICA network. In addition to this, the next election cycle was presented for electing two at-large members who will be ending their terms in 2024. Another update on the roles of the PCOM members was the announcement of Shuangcheng Liu, PCOM member since 2016, as the new liaison with the ICA Fund for the International Development of Archives’ (FIDA).   
At this meeting, the PCOM members and guests also learned about the plan for creating a Climate Change working group, an initiative to open the discussion on the impact of archives on the environment and the consequences of climate change in our archival institutions. Alongside this topic, the fourteen PCOM Projects 2023 were shared with the attendees. 

The participants at this meeting heard from Hamad Al Mutairi, Co-Chair of the Congress Programme Committee, about the call for proposals and the timeline for building the professional programme of this major event. Al Mutairi noted that 484 proposals from 88 countries were submitted, and that the review process was advancing according to the Programme Committee’s schedule. 
 
 
The next PCOM meeting will be held virtually in June. In this second session of the year, PCOM will continue the conversation around the professional programme of the ICA Congress Abu Dhabi 2023, the future work plan for PCOM and the progress on the ICA professional programmes.