The University of Cyprus welcomes you to the 13^th ARLE Conference, which focuses on Transformations in L1 Education. Participants are invited to consider how, at the current moment, research helps see challenges as opportunities for rethinking L1 education. In the transition to a post-COVID-19 era, the pandemic crisis serves as a liminal space: an in-between territory that allows the acknowledgment of challenges that pre-existed the pandemic and a place to explore alternative ways of moving forward. In this sense, the pandemic crisis can be understood as compounded with long lasting challenges including year-long economic crises and climate change, displacement and relocation, the surge of violence and polarization. With an eye on the past and on the present of the global pandemic, we invite conference participants to (re)imagine possible future transformations of L1 research and education».