The Vienna Conference on Arts & Humanities (VCAH2026)

The Vienna Conference on Arts & Humanities (VCAH2026) is an interdisciplinary gathering of educators and researchers from around the world, held as part of IAFOR’s European Conference Series and hosted at the Austria Center Vienna in 2026.

Key Information
  • Location & Venue: Austria Center Vienna, Vienna, Austria & Online
  • Dates: Friday, November 13, 2026 ​to Tuesday, November 17, 2026
  • Early Bird Abstract Submission Deadline: May 21, 2026*
  • Final Abstract Submission Deadline: July 30, 2026
  • Registration Deadline for Presenters: September 10, 2026

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

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International, Intercultural, Interdisciplinary

The Vienna Conference on Arts and Humanities (VCAH2026) will be hosted alongside The Vienna Conference on the Social Sciences (VCSS2026) as a part of the IAFOR European City Conference Series. Registration for either of these conferences will allow delegates to attend any joint plenary session or parallel sessions as desired.

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Willkommen in Wien! Welcome to Vienna!

Vienna is a wonderful and vibrant city, and a great central European cultural centre. Previously the capital of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire and now the capital of Austria, Vienna has a long and storied history reflecting its geographical position at the very heart of the European peninsula. A meeting place of peoples and ideas for centuries, Vienna is today constitutionally and permanently committed to neutrality. The city serves as one of the world’s most important hubs for global diplomacy and multilateral cooperation, and the headquarters to several UN agencies.

Vienna is a global centre for the arts and design, with a diverse and beautiful cityscape, including wonderful examples of Baroque, Secessionist, and modernist architecture. Its world-class galleries boast renowned collections of European art throughout the ages, including those dedicated to the Viennese artists Klimt and Schiele. However, it is for music that ‘The City of Music’ is most famous and celebrated, as it is home to the world’s greatest classical composers, including Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Mahler. Vienna continues that musical tradition today, from public street performances and waltzes to opulent performance halls such as the Opera House and the Musikverein, the home of the renowned Vienna Philharmonic.

Alongside its artistic and musical heritage lies a great intellectual and academic tradition, which have influenced and inspired each other for centuries. Home to great and prestigious universities and academies, Vienna is perhaps best known for its coffeehouse tradition; spaces which became informal centres of learning through social and intellectual exchange, and where people engaged across the lines of nation, culture, but most importantly discipline, as the city and university intersected. During Vienna’s golden age, the interplay of politics, philosophy, psychology, and the arts fostered an environment that shaped some of the twentieth century’s most brilliant minds — among them Freud, Adler, Wittgenstein, Popper, Hayek, and Loos — and whose ideas in turn continue to influence and define modern thought.

We look forward to being inspired by the international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary traditions of Vienna, and to contributing to its intellectual life through our conference. This event will bring together hundreds of scholars from around the world to exchange ideas, research, and perspectives as we bring our International Academic Forum to Vienna. Join us!

We look forward to seeing you in Vienna!

For and on behalf of the IAFOR International Academic Board

Dr Joseph Haldane, Osaka University, Japan & University College London, United Kingdom
Chairman and CEO, IAFOR

Professor Jun Arima, University of Tokyo, Japan
President, IAFOR

Professor Anne Boddington, Kingston University, United Kingdom
Executive Vice-President and Provost, IAFOR

Present, Listen, Connect: Ways to Join

Whether you’re sharing your research or coming to learn, there’s a way to take part. Join us in person at in Vienna, or take part online from anywhere. One registration gives you full access to both VCAH and VCSS sessions, plus recordings to catch up on afterwards.

However you join, you’ll be part of an international, interdisciplinary community.

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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.

    Speakers

    More to be announced

    • Anne Boddington
      Anne Boddington
      IAFOR, Japan
    • Albane Buriel
      Albane Buriel
      University Rennes 2, France
    • Ruth Mateus-Berr
      Ruth Mateus-Berr
      Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, Austria
    • Christoph Thun-Hohenstein
      Christoph Thun-Hohenstein
      Future Platform ReGenerativa, Austria
    • Darrel Toulon
      Darrel Toulon
      Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, Austria

    Conference News

    Read More Conference News

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    Ruth Mateus-Berr
    Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, Austria

    Biography

    Dr Ruth Mateus-Berr is an artist, researcher, social designer, and professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria. She heads the Center for Didactics of Art and Interdisciplinary Education at the university and is a teacher at BRG XXI Schulschiff Bertha von Suttner secondary school in Vienna. Her main research areas are art, artistic research, (social) multisensual design research, interdisciplinary art and design education, and health. She has published several articles and books, and has exhibited art and artistic research internationally.

    Discussion Panel (2026) | The Arts in Times of Crisis
    Anne Boddington
    IAFOR, Japan

    Biography

    Professor Anne Boddington is Executive Vice-President and Provost of IAFOR, and oversees the academic programs, research and policies of the forum.

    Anne Boddington is Professor Emerita of Design Innovation and has held executive and senior leadership roles in Higher Education including as Dean of Arts & Humanities at the University of Brighton, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business & Innovation at Kingston and Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at Middlesex University.

    In 2022, she concluded chairing the Sub Panel (32) for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory as part of the Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) and has extensive experience in the governance and conduct of peer review, research evaluation and assessment in REF2014 (Sub Panel Deputy Chair and Equality Diversity Advisory Panel [EDAP]) and RAE2008. A former member of AHRC’s Advisory Board, she is the current Chair of the Advisory Board for the UKRI’s National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research (NICER) programme (£30M), Deputy Chair and a Trustee of the Design Council, the government’s strategic advisor for design, and a member of both the InnoHK Scientific Committee (Hong Kong) and the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ).

    Since the 1990’s Anne has worked across the UK and internationally with a wide range of quality assurance, professional, statutory, and regulatory bodies in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Hong Kong, and India.

    As an independent consultant she now works as a strategic advisor and mentor and is committed to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in practice, developing effective governance, supporting career development, reducing bureaucracy, and improving organisational design, integrity, and productivity in the changing workplace.

    Panel Presentation (2026) | TBA
    Albane Buriel
    University Rennes 2, France

    Biography

    Dr Albane Buriel is an associate researcher in Education Sciences at University Rennes 2, France, within the Centre for Research on Education, Learning and Didactics (CREAD), and the founder and president of Art to Face, an international NGO dedicated to culture and arts education in emergency, conflict, and post-conflict settings. Her work lies at the intersection of research, humanitarian practice, and cultural action. She specialises in arts-based approaches across mental health and psychosocial support, education, and community participation, examining how artistic and cultural practices can support agency, recognition, collective meaning-making, and social cohesion in contexts of violence and displacement.

    Dr Buriel has conducted multi-sited fieldwork in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Eastern Europe, working alongside local communities, artists, educators, NGOs, and international organisations. Her research draws on ethnographic and participatory methodologies, including participant observation, arts-based and biographical devices, and collaborative knowledge production.

    She teaches humanitarian action, MHPSS, and arts-based education in several universities. Her work critically examines both the potential and the ethical tensions of arts-based practice, including questions of power, representation, emotional exposure, care, and sustainability. Through Art to Face, she is currently developing the International Observatory on Culture and Arts Education in Crisis and Post-Conflict Contexts.

    Keynote Presentation (2026) | Arts in Crisis Settings: Rethinking Health, Education and Protection
    Darrel Toulon
    Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, Austria

    Biography

    Darrel Toulon is an artistic researcher, practitioner, and educator at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität, Austria. He is also a cultural manager, an artist supported by Arts and Health Austria, and the Founding Artistic Director of 'the alpha group’, based in Vienna. His projects align with the university's Third Mission, addressing issues such as the consequences of migration and war, intersectionality and identity, and long-term unemployment. His primary area of research is the development of docu-dance-theatre as a transdisciplinary tool using participatory artistic interventions for personal growth, trauma transformation, and societal change, with marginalised, stigmatised, and silenced populations.

    Toulon has headed projects in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Uganda, and was a featured artist at Künstlerhaus Wien (SUBSTANZ Exhibition, 2024-25). Other international projects include the intergenerational/interethnic Peace-Building with Performance Arts Residency at Mindanao State University, Philippines. His projects also target young adults with migration backgrounds and NEET status, and individuals living with their Lebensborn family inheritance.

    In 2002, he was awarded the First Austrian Dance Production Special Prize. His community dance project “THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR” (2015), created with unaccompanied minor refugees residing in Graz, Austria, was nominated for Place of Respect 2016. He was awarded the Styrian Golden Cross of Honour in 2016.

    Keynote Presentation (2026) | TBA
    Christoph Thun-Hohenstein
    Future Platform ReGenerativa, Austria

    Biography

    Christoph Thun-Hohenstein is cultural manager, curator, and author at the interface of fine art, media art, design, architecture and ecology, climate, regeneration as well as digitalisation and artificial intelligence / superintelligence. He is Artistic Director of the Future Platform ReGenerativa, Austria.

    After studying law, political science, and history of art at the University of Vienna, Austria, Dr Thun-Hohenstein worked for the Austrian Foreign Ministry and held posts in Abidjan, Geneva, and Bonn. He was Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York from 1999 to 2007. From 2022 to 2025, he was Director General for International Cultural Relations at the Austrian Foreign Ministry. From 2007 to 2011, he served as Managing Director of departure, the Creative Industries.

    Agency of the City of Vienna. Dr Thun-Hohenstein also served as General Director and Artistic Director of the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna from 2011 to 2021. He then founded the Vienna Biennale for Change, which he directed from 2014 until 2022. Most recently, he initiated the Vienna Climate Biennale and chaired the Advisory Board of the Vienna Climate Biennale.

    Dr Thun-Hohenstein has published several books. His most recent book, Zukunftsmutig (Kremayr & Scheriau 2026, in German), was released earlier this year.

    Keynote Presentation (2026) | TBA