ECAH2026 Overview

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Join us in London (and online) for ECAH2026!

July 09–13, 2026 | SOAS & University College London, UK & Online

Held in partnership with University College London (UCL), Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Sussex, this international conference encourages academics and scholars to meet and exchange ideas and views in a forum stimulating respectful dialogue, by bringing together university scholars working in the UK, Europe, and beyond to share ideas and research. This event will afford an exceptional opportunity for renewing old acquaintances, making new contacts, networking, and facilitating partnerships across national and disciplinary borders.

Since its founding in 2009, IAFOR has brought people and ideas together in a variety of events and platforms to promote and celebrate interdisciplinary study, and underline its importance. Over the past year we have engaged in many cross-sectoral projects, including those with universities (the University of Barcelona, Hofstra University, UCL, University of Belgrade and Moscow State University), think tanks (the East-West Center), as well as collaborative projects with the United Nations in New York, and the Government of Japan through the Prime Minister’s office, and right here in London with University College London (UCL), Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Sussex, for this conference!

With the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at The University of Osaka, we have engaged in a number of interdisciplinary initiatives we believe will have an important impact on domestic and international public policy conversations. It is through conferences like these that we expand our network and partners, and we have no doubt that ECAH2026 will offer a remarkable opportunity for the sharing of research and best practice, for the meeting of people and ideas. We expect the resultant professional and personal collaborations to endure for many years!

The 14th European Conference on Arts & Humanities (ECAH2026) is an interdisciplinary conference held alongside The 14th European Conference on Education (ECE2026) and The 6th European Conference on Aging & Gerontology (EGen2026). Registration for any of these conferences will allow delegates to attend sessions in the others.

In conjunction with our Global Partners, including University College London (UCL), Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Sussex, we look forward to meeting you in London (and online) for ECAH2026.

– The ECAH2026 Conference Programme Committee

Key Information
  • Venue & Location: University College London (UCL), Institute of Education, United Kingdom & Online
  • Dates: Thursday, July 09, 2026 ​to Monday, July 13, 2026
  • Early Bird Abstract Submission Deadline: February 13, 2026*
  • Final Abstract Submission Deadline: April 17, 2026
  • Registration Deadline for Presenters: May 22, 2026

*Submit early to take advantage of the discounted registration rates. Learn more about our registration options.

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Speakers

To be announced

  • Dorina Cadar
    Dorina Cadar
    Brighton and Sussex Medical School, United Kingdom
  • Paul Chamberlain
    Paul Chamberlain
    Royal College of Art, United Kingdom
  • Evangelia Chrysikou
    Evangelia Chrysikou
    University College London (UCL), United Kingdom
  • Alfonso J. García-Osuna
    Alfonso J. García-Osuna
    Hofstra University, United States
  • Lee Jerome
    Lee Jerome
    Middlesex University, United Kingdom
  • Allison Littlejohn
    Allison Littlejohn
    University College London (UCL), United Kingdom
  • Justin McGuirk
    Justin McGuirk
    The Design Museum, United Kingdom
  • James W. McNally
    James W. McNally
    University of Michigan & NACDA Program on Aging, United States

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Featured Presentations

To be announced

  • The Forum
    The Forum
    Come share your thoughts and experiences as global educators and researchers.
  • Don’t Let AI Change What It Means to Teach
    Don’t Let AI Change What It Means to Teach
    Keynote Presentation: Allison Littlejohn
  • What Can Teachers Do to Promote Democratic Citizenship?
    What Can Teachers Do to Promote Democratic Citizenship?
    Keynote Presentation: Lee Jerome
  • The Role of the Arts and Humanities in Troubling Times: Part III
    The Role of the Arts and Humanities in Troubling Times: Part III
    The Forum: Alfonso Garcia Osuna, Melina Neophytou, Apipol Sae-Tung
  • From Risk to Resilience: Rethinking Ageing, Brain Health, and Dementia Prevention
    From Risk to Resilience: Rethinking Ageing, Brain Health, and Dementia Prevention
    Keynote Presentation: Dorina Cadar
  • The 100-Year Life and Our Future Home
    The 100-Year Life and Our Future Home
    Keynote Presentation: Paul Chamberlain
  • Designing With and For the Living World
    Designing With and For the Living World
    Keynote Presentation: Justin McGuirk

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Conference Committees

The International Academic Board (IAB)

Professor Anne Boddington, IAFOR, Japan (IAB Chair)
Dr Joseph Haldane, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
Professor Jun Arima, IAFOR & The University of Tokyo, Japan
Professor Virgil Hawkins, IAFOR Research Centre & The University of Osaka, Japan
Mr Lowell Sheppard, IAFOR & Never Too Late Academy, Japan

Professor Umberto Ansaldo, VinUniversity, Vietnam
Dr Susana Barreto, University of Porto, Portugal
Professor Grant Black, Chuo University, Japan
Dr Evangelia Chrysikou, The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, University College London, United Kingdom
Professor Donald E. Hall, Binghamton University, United States
Professor Brendan Howe, Ewha Womans University, South Korea & The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA)
Dr James W. McNally, University of Michigan, United States & NACDA Program on Aging

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Conference Programme Committee

Professor Anne Boddington, Executive Vice-President and Provost, IAFOR & Middlesex University, United Kingdom
Dr Evangelia Chrysikou, Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, University College London, United Kingdom
Dr Mehmet Demir, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele, Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom
Dr Joseph Haldane, IAFOR and The University of Osaka, Japan, & University College London, United Kingdom (Conference Co-chair)
Professor Donald E. Hall, Binghamton University, United States
Dr Jacqueline Lottin, Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates
Dr David Mallows, University College London Institute of Education, United Kingdom
Professor Andrea Révész, University College London Institute of Education, United Kingdom
Dr Ian Scott, University College London, United Kingdom
Dr Marcelo Staricoff, University of Sussex, United Kingdom

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Conference Review Committee

Professor Selina Gao, Murray State University, United States
Dr Rebecca Lind, University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
Dr Chandna Singh Nirwan, Majan University College, Oman
Dr Rasha Osman Abdel Haliem, The Higher Technological Institute & AMIDEAST, Egypt
Dr Mario Savini, University of Camerino, Italy


IAFOR's peer review process, which involves both reciprocal review and the use of Review Committees, is overseen by the Conference Programme Committee under the guidance of the International Academic Board (IAB). Review Committee members are established academics who hold PhDs or other terminal degrees in their fields and who have previous peer review experience.

If you would like to apply to serve on the ECAH2026 Review Committee, please visit our application page.

Apply to Join the Review Committee

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IAFOR's Conference Themes for 2025-2029

IAFOR Themes 2025-2029
Our selected themes for 2025-2029 bring together ideas and encourage research and synergies in the following areas:

  • Technology and Artificial Intelligence
  • Humanity and Human Intelligence
  • Global Citizenship and Education for Peace
  • Leadership

    • Our four themes can be seen as standalone themes, but they are also very much in conversation with each other. Themes may be seen as corollaries, complementary, or in opposition/juxtaposition with each other. The themes can be considered as widely as possible and are designed, in keeping with our mission, to encourage ideas across the disciplines.

    Dorina Cadar
    Brighton and Sussex Medical School, United Kingdom

    Biography

    Professor Dorina Cadar is a Professor in Ageing and Behavioural Science at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in partnership with the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex, United Kingdom. She leads interdisciplinary research on healthy ageing, cognitive resilience, dementia prevention, and population mental health. She is Director of the CEDAR Lab and Deputy Director of the Centre for Dementia Studies and Deputy Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Her research combines epidemiology, behavioural science, neuroscience, and public health approaches to investigate how social, psychological, cardiovascular, and lifestyle factors influence cognitive ageing and brain health across the lifecourse. She works extensively with large longitudinal cohort studies, including the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and UK Biobank, alongside community and translational research focused on resilience, prevention, and inequalities in ageing. Professor Cadar has led and collaborated on projects funded by organisations including UKRI, NIHR, UKHSA, Alzheimer’s Research UK, and the British Academy. She is also actively involved in public engagement initiatives aimed at raising awareness and improving communication about healthy ageing and dementia prevention, including projects selected for national scientific exhibitions and community outreach programmes.

    Keynote Presentation (2026) | From Risk to Resilience: Rethinking Ageing, Brain Health, and Dementia Prevention
    Paul Chamberlain
    Royal College of Art, United Kingdom

    Biography

    Dr Paul Chamberlain is Professor of Design and Co-Chair of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art, United Kingdom, a global leader in Inclusive Design founded in 1991. Professor Chamberlain’s research informs the design of the built environment through developing tools and methods to encourage and engender innovation and applied with a focus on health and wellbeing, disability, and ageing. His work explores the multi-sensory aspects of design and the role of artefacts that help define pertinent social questions as much as present solutions. He has led major interdisciplinary projects, won international awards for his designs, and delivered keynote lectures at leading international events. He has over 100 published texts and his work has been exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taiwan, The WAAG Amsterdam and the Venice Architectural Biennale. Paul was recently the principal investigator of a £4m Research England funded project that focused on the 100-year life and the Future Home and was the first visiting international resident scholar of the Neutra Institute, United States. He was a member of the Art & Design, History Theory and Practice panel for the UK Research Excellence Framework 2021, was founder and director of research group Lab4Living, and is founding editor of the Design for Health Journal (Taylor and Francis).

    Keynote Presentation (2026) | The 100-Year Life and Our Future Home
    Evangelia Chrysikou
    University College London (UCL), United Kingdom

    Biography

    Dr Evangelia Chrysikou, RIBA is Associate Professor within the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction at University College London, United Kingdom, and Founder/Programme Director of the university’s MSc Healthcare Facilities. A multi-awarded RIBA architect and healthcare planner, Dr Chrysikou has published widely and won several prestigious grants and fellowships from international organisations, including Horizon 2020, UKRI, Wellcome, British Academy, Royal Society of New Zealand, and the Sasakawa Foundation. Her research interests lie at the spectrum of inclusion in relation to design, spanning across the disciplines of built environment, health, digital technologies and the social sciences. Dr Chrysikou is a member of the National Accessibility Authority, Hellenic Republic by invitation from the Greek Prime Minister, and a member of the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Life Sciences and Healthcare Council Leadership Committee. She was the coordinator of the Environment Section of the EIPonAHA, EU, and has worked as a consultant for international government bodies such as the Japanese MOFA, Peru Reconstruction Mechanism, and the British Government for projects related to healthcare planning and architecture. She was elected Vice-President of the Urban Public Health section of EUPHA in 2018.

    Alfonso J. García-Osuna
    Hofstra University, United States

    Biography

    Alfonso J. García-Osuna has taught at Hofstra University and at City University of NY-Kingsborough for over 35 years. He specialises in mediaeval and early modern literature, receiving his PhD (1989) from the Graduate School of the City University of New York. He has completed postdoctoral work at the University of Valladolid, Spain, has published six books, and is a frequent contributor to specialised journals. Additionally, Dr García-Osuna is the editor of the IAFOR Journal of Arts and Humanities.

    Alfonso received primary and secondary education in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, the place where his family originated and where he grew up. An avid cyclist, he has completed the Road to Santiago, an 867-kilometre route through northern Spain, eight times.

    The Forum (2026) | The Role of the Arts & Humanities in Troubling Times: Part 3

    Previous Presentations

    Keynote Presentation (2024) | Humanities at the Helm: Mobilising Scholars to Confront the Planetary Climate Crisis
    Lee Jerome
    Middlesex University, United Kingdom

    Biography

    Professor Lee Jerome has worked in secondary schools as a history and sociology teacher, in the charity sector running citizenship projects, and in universities teaching on a variety of courses from undergraduate to doctoral programmes. His main interests are linked to citizenship education, children's rights education, and the work of teachers. He is editor of the academic journal Education, Citizenship and Social Justice and his books include England’s Citizenship Education Experiment (2012), Children’s Rights Education in Diverse Schools (2021 with Hugh Starkey), Votes at 16 (2025 with Ben Kisby) and Educating for Citizenship (forthcoming). Professor Jerome’s recent projects include leading a group of student researchers to develop proposals for the national curriculum review in England, a 3-year student survey of citizenship education in secondary schools, and an international project to explore student-led approaches to learning about divisive contemporary issues.

    Keynote Presentation (2026) | TBA
    Allison Littlejohn
    University College London (UCL), United Kingdom

    Biography

    Professor Allison Littlejohn is Pro-Vice Provost for Grand Challenge Data Empowered Societies and Professor of Learning and Technology in the UCL Knowledge Lab at University College London (UCL), United Kingdom. Her research expands our understanding of the socio-technical impacts of digital transformation at work and how it impacts work and learning. Professor Littlejohn was previously Director of the UCL Knowledge Lab, University College London (2020 -2025); Dean (Learning & Teaching) at the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom (2019-20); Academic Director for Digital Innovation at the Open University, United Kingdom (2015-2019); and Professor and Director of the Caledonian Academy at Glasgow Caledonian University, United Kingdom (2006-2015). She holds the Ruth Wong Visiting Professorship at the National Institute of Education, Singapore.

    Keynote Presentation (2026) | Don’t Let AI Change What it Means to Teach
    Justin McGuirk
    The Design Museum, United Kingdom

    Biography

    Justin McGuirk is the director of Future Observatory, the United Kingdom’s national design research programme for the green transition, based at the Design Museum in London. He is also the former chief curator of the Design Museum. A writer and curator, he has produced numerous high-profile exhibitions and publishing projects. In 2012, he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. He is a regular speaker at universities and conferences around the world, and his writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Guardian, e-flux, and numerous art and design journals. He is the author or editor of ten books, including Radical Cities (Verso, 2014) and More than Human: Making with the Living World (the Design Museum, 2025). He is also the editor of Future Observatory Journal.

    Keynote Presentation (2026) | Designing With and For the Living World
    James W. McNally
    University of Michigan & NACDA Program on Aging, United States

    Biography

    Dr James W. McNally is the Emeritus Research Scientist for the NACDA Program on Aging, located in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, United States. He was trained initially in forensic anthropology at the University of Maryland and then in formal demography at Georgetown University. As part of this PhD work, Dr McNally was awarded the first minor degree in social gerontology from the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown University, followed by a two-year postdoctoral appointment examining policy applications of health data at Syracuse University’s Center for Policy Research. After teaching at Brown University as an Assistant Research Professor, Dr McNally directed the NACDA Program on Aging from 1998 to 2025, building an internationally recognised collection of seminal studies on the aging lifecourse, health, retirement, and international aspects of ageing. In addition to lifecourse research, he has spent much of his career addressing mechanisms to maintain and strengthen family support networks, focusing on the needs of frail or cognitively impaired elders, presenting on these issues in the United States and internationally. Dr McNally serves on the International Academic Board of IAFOR.

    Special Address (2026) | EGen2026 Special Address

    Previous Presentations

    Special Seminar Session (2024) | An Introduction to the IAFOR Undergraduate Research Symposium (IURS)
    The Forum
    Come share your thoughts and experiences as global educators and researchers.

    The Forum is a plenary session designed as a platform for international, intercultural, interdisciplinary – and inclusive – discussions, joining experts and practitioners alike in an open dialogue format. Come share your thoughts and experiences as global educators and researchers.

    The Forum will take place in two separate formats.
    The Forum (Onsite) will be held at the venue and is exclusively for Onsite participants

    The Forum (Online) will take place on the Online Day and is open to all Conference participants and IAFOR Members.

    Overviews of the ideas, conversations, and key takeaways generated from the discussion at these sessions are recorded and archived in the Conference Report and Intelligence Briefing (ISSN: 2759-4939)

    Don’t Let AI Change What It Means to Teach
    Keynote Presentation: Allison Littlejohn

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) is permeating education systems worldwide, reshaping teaching, learning, and assessment. Research shows that most university educators now use AI tools in their practice (Wang et al, 2026). Even those educators who choose not to use AI in their teaching still encounter AI use in their work, because of the large number of students choosing to use AI to carry out coursework (Digital Education Council, 2025). For academics, the use of AI raises fundamental questions about professional identity and power. AI adoption risks transferring pedagogical choices from educators to technologists, shifting teaching practice away from human-centred practice towards the management of data and technology. This presentation examines how educators draw on cognitive, affective, and social practices to support learning. Practices such as real-time sensemaking through student cues, purposive instructional design anticipating misconceptions, and creating emotional scaffolds that enable learning. While AI can assist with some tasks, it cannot replicate the professional judgment needed for effective teaching. Taking a wider perspective, this keynote will explore the effects of AI and data usage on professional agency, highlighting power shifts and vulnerabilities of people in different professions. Ways to navigate these vulnerabilities will also be discussed through forms of professional development that allow the negotiation of future work in ways that ensure AI adoption empowers human workers, rather than the AI being empowered by human work.

    Read presenter's biography
    What Can Teachers Do to Promote Democratic Citizenship?
    Keynote Presentation: Lee Jerome

    This lecture argues that teachers are uniquely placed to help defend democracy and considers what we can reasonably expect teachers to do and what the evidence suggests about their chance of success. The presentation will start with a brief outline of some of the key contemporary challenges and explore how teachers can exercise agency, even within constrained policy environments. Drawing on a review of the international research literature and recent survey evidence, the presentation will demonstrate that education can strengthen young people’s knowledge and understanding of democracy; their ability to engage in deliberative dialogue; and their willingness to act as active citizens. The session will end with some examples of how schools can support these outcomes through classroom practice, whole-school culture, and community engagement, suggesting that such positive outcomes can be achieved within existing curriculum and policy constraints in many countries.

    Read presenter's biography
    The Role of the Arts and Humanities in Troubling Times: Part III
    The Forum: Alfonso Garcia Osuna, Melina Neophytou, Apipol Sae-Tung

    Education, and the arts and humanities in particular, act as a positive force in framing and understanding the many contentious issues we collectively face in the pursuit of a sustainable world. In times that are increasingly uncertain, hostile, and contentious, and in which national governments focus on productivity, efficiency, technology, and security, considerations of humanity, human intelligence, and the wider common good are often ignored.

    In Part I of this Forum series held at the ACAH/ACCS/ACSS2026 conference in Tokyo in May 2026, delegates discussed whether the arts and humanities have made a sufficient case for their value to governments and wider society today. One of the main conclusions was that the case has always been there, but the problem lies in communication.

    In Part II, held at the PCE/PCAH2026 conference in Paris in June, participants discussed how we can best communicate the value of the arts and humanities to those who know about it but may be more inclined towards short-term achievements, financial stability, progress, and growth.

    In Part III of this series, this Forum session at ECE/ECAH/EGen2026 invites participants to build on its predecessors and the words and concepts identified that will resonate and convince, as well as discuss possible action plans.

    Read presenters' biographies
    From Risk to Resilience: Rethinking Ageing, Brain Health, and Dementia Prevention
    Keynote Presentation: Dorina Cadar

    Population ageing represents one of the greatest scientific, societal, and public health challenges of the 21st century. While ageing and dementia research has traditionally focused on decline, disease, and dependency, there is increasing recognition that resilience, adaptation, and prevention are equally important for understanding healthy ageing and maintaining brain health across the lifecourse. This keynote will explore how interdisciplinary approaches across behavioural science, neuroscience, public health, education, and community research can help reshape the way we think about ageing and dementia prevention in contemporary society.

    Drawing on evidence from longitudinal cohort studies, translational research, and community-based projects, the presentation will examine how cardiovascular health, mental wellbeing, social connection, education, lifestyle behaviours, and health inequalities interact to influence cognitive ageing and dementia risk. The lecture will further discuss the role of public engagement, inclusive communication, and community participation in promoting healthier and more resilient ageing societies.

    Examples from ongoing research programmes in healthy ageing, resilience, dementia prevention, and public engagement will illustrate how resilience-based approaches can support not only dementia prevention, but also quality of life, wellbeing, independence, and social participation in later life. Emerging directions in digital health, artificial intelligence, and personalised prevention strategies will also be considered, alongside the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration across science, healthcare, education, and the humanities.

    The keynote concludes by arguing for a broader and more hopeful framework for ageing research and policy, one that moves beyond disease-centred narratives and towards supporting resilience, dignity, inclusion, and healthy ageing across diverse communities.

    Read presenter's biography
    The 100-Year Life and Our Future Home
    Keynote Presentation: Paul Chamberlain

    With advancements in medical science, it is estimated that a quarter of babies born today will live to one hundred years old. This increased life expectancy will bring about many societal changes and economic challenges. The number of years of this extended life that will be spent in good health is not increasing at a proportionate rate. Existing conceptualisations of life, education, work, retirement, a three-stage model, will be replaced by a multi-stage model of life. How and when we exist with these changing aspects of life and where they take place are increasingly less certain as traditional structures of every-day life and the spaces we inhabit are being challenged. This talk explores how inclusive approaches to design might shape our future environment to support healthier ageing and enhance our wellbeing. While advocating the significant value of design to support activities of daily living, cautionary approaches must be taken to understand the positive value and sometimes negative impact of design. This has become more imperative since the increasing democratisation and proliferation of co-design, where non-design experts are increasingly involved in, and sometimes leading, the design process.

    Read presenter's biography
    Designing With and For the Living World
    Keynote Presentation: Justin McGuirk

    Design is critical to the green transition, and yet within the dominant conceptual frameworks of ‘sustainability’ and ‘net zero’ its impact will always be limited. According to these logics, design is less a medium for imagination than a means of damage limitation. It is reduced to reducing: shaving off increments of carbon, plastic, and waste without rethinking the systems that produce them. Future Observatory, the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition, funds and supports such work, and incremental change is urgent. But, as the design theorist Arturo Escobar argues, the climate crisis is not just a carbon crisis but a crisis of storytelling. In line with his assertion that we need to transition from one story of the world to another, an important facet of Future Observatory’s work is to explore alternative narratives.

    Central to those narratives is the belief that design will have to shift from being a human-centric discipline to one that works with and for landscapes, ecosystems, and other species. More-than-human design is a challenge to contemporary practice, indeed to the very definition of design as we know it. But if the Anthropocene has made anything clear, it is that we live in a time when human interests have to be tempered with the interests of the rest of the living world. What does it mean to design not just for ourselves but for other species and for the health of natural systems? What does it mean to design with and for the living world?

    Read presenter's biography