For 2021, I can present several achievements. From a research-based perspective, the year 2021 was highly successful: I published four co-edited books with international publishers, published one authored book, 24 authored and co-authored chapters in books with editors from Germany, the US, the UK, Japan and South Africa. Additionally, I co-edited two special issues: one together with Prof Paul Wong in the context of  INPM—on Covid-19 and EPP (PP2.0) in Frontiers of Psychology. The other was on psychobiography in Europe’s Journal of Psychology, together with professors Paul Fouché and van Niekerk from South Africa. Finally, I (co-)published 20 articles in accredited journals.

Internationally, I held six public talks, was invited to several interviews, conducted two conference symposiums and held 16 international presentations, some of them keynote presentations. I also presented several papers and initiated and moderated a symposium at the August 2021 INPM conference, which was a real highlight in terms of EPP input and international networking.

In 2021, I was declared the top researcher at the School of Management in the Center for Economics and Business at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa for the year 2020. Further, I was nominated as a fellow in the Intercultural Academy of International Research (IAIR) due to my extraordinary contributions to intercultural research. I was invited to help establish the psychobiography group of the psychohistory forum, the latter of which was founded by Paul Elovitz in New York, USA. We are now in the process of establishing this international psychobiography group.

Further, I was invited as a visiting professor at VinUniversity in Hanoi, Vietnam, at Thapar University in Patiala, Punjab, India and at the Engineering Faculty in Pforzheim, Germany, where I presented talks and held classes. During 2021, I joined two editorial boards:  I became an Associate Editor in Frontiers in Psychology for the subsection Positive Psychology (Switzerland) and I was invited to become an Associate Regional Editor for the International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management (UK).

Finally, at a community level, I celebrate two achievements for 2021: First, I invited the 2021 Master class in Cross-Cultural Psychology in the Master degree of Industrial Psychology to join me on a common research project and with 12 students I published an article in an international journal. This was an outstanding achievement with meaningful impact for many students. Secondly, I volunteered to support South African frontline workers in the health care system through free psychological counselling to help them cope during the pandemic.