UNESCO Futures of Education Update 2026

“UNESCO”

Future of Education Newsletter launched, UNESCO, Paris, France.

 

UNESCO has just launched a newsletter with details of activities (some in person and others online), including IdeasLab, and Futures Dialogue, and publications related to their Futures of Education Programme, begun in 2020. Follow the link above for details.

One example of a future event is this:
Building Digital Futures for Public Education International Day for Digital Learning
In-person event | Helsinki, Thursday, 19 March 2026

The 2026 International Day for Digital Learning, under the theme of ‘Building digital futures for public education’, is an invitation to showcase where and how countries, provinces and school districts are building – and using – digital commons to strengthen public education and improve its outcomes. In line with the 2026 theme, UNESCO, together with UNICEF and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), will launch the Charter for Public Digital Learning Platforms on the International Day.

Background information:

UNESCO’s Futures of Education Programme anticipates and imagines new possibilities for education. It looks beyond the immediacy of today and tomorrow and takes a longer-term view of the purposes, functions and processes of education. Because education shapes the future, it is vital to generate ideas and suggest orientation to construct the future of education.

The Center for Intercultural Dialogue held three focus groups as part of the information gathering stage of the Futures of Education project, preparing what we learned as a report for UNESCO, in 2021. A few months later they requested concrete examples from around the world, and we prepared an addendum.

CFP ICA Regional Chapters

“Collaborative

Call for proposals: Additional Regional Chapters: Expanding ICA’s Global Scholarly Community, International Communication Association, USA. Deadline: 1 April 2026.

International Communication Association Regional Chapters mapICA’s current six regional chapters are: Indonesia, Nigeria, China, Kenya, France, and India. In just a short span, these Regional Chapters have been pivotal in advancing their founding purpose:

  • Build networks by creating local scholarly communities that foster collaboration, mutual support, and the exchange of ideas, ensuring researchers can connect and thrive no matter their location.
  • Develop capacity by offering training, mentorship, and resources to students , early-, mid- and late- career researchers, empowering the next generation of scholars to succeed and lead.
  • Amplify voices by promoting the work of scholars from underrepresented regions, ensuring their research contributes to global conversations and advances the broader academic community.
  • Expand access by breaking down barriers for scholars who are unable to attend the annual ICA conference, bringing opportunities for collaboration and growth closer to home.

Call for New Chapter Proposals

Building on the success of the pilot program, ICA now invites proposals for new chapters worldwide. Submissions must adhere to the following criteria:

Completed online submission form covering the chapter’s mission, goals, proposed governance structure, leadership team, financial plan, and planned programming. Applicants must also gather signed support from at least 15 individuals in the proposed country (faculty, graduate students, or professionals in communication or related fields) and endorsement signatures from at least 10 current ICA members worldwide. CVs of the proposed leadership team must accompany the submission. 

The Chapter Proponent must be an ICA member in good/active standing for at least the past six months, and have a mailing address in the proposed chapter’s country.

Only proposals for the establishment of a country-level (national) chapter will be accepted. Proposals representing cities, states, provinces, or other sub-national entities are not eligible. Countries where ICA has an existing chapter are not eligible.

CID Poster 1: Intercultural Communication / Competence / Dialogue Translated into Spanish

CID PostersThis poster was designed by Linda J. de Wit, and published previously; it now has been translated into Spanish.

This one provides a quick and easy way to understand, and differentiate between, the concepts of “intercultural communication,” “intercultural competence,” and “intercultural dialogue,” using a rooster and a sheep to represent members of different cultures (and she notes that the animals are vector designs by vecteezy.com).

The Spanish translation was provided by Neus Crous-Costa, and the graphic design work necessary to revise was by Yan Qiu. Here then is CID Poster 1: Comunicación / comunicació / competència.

CID Poster 1 translated into Spanish

The article where these explanations of these concepts (as well as lots of other concepts) were published is:

Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (2016). De la possession des compétences interculturelles au dialogue interculturel: Un cadre conceptuel [Moving from having intercultural competencies to constructing intercultural dialogues: A conceptual framework]. Les Politiques Sociales, 3/4, 7-22.

Just in case anyone wants to cite this poster, the following would be the recommended format:

Center for Intercultural Dialogue. (2026). Comunicación / comunicació / competència intercultural [N. Crous-Costa, trans.]. CID Posters, 1. Available from: https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/cid-poster-1-animals-spanish.png

As with other series, CID Posters are available for free on the site; just click on the thumbnail to download a printable version. They may be downloaded, printed, and shared as is, without changes, without cost, so long as there is acknowledgment of the source.

As with other CID Publications, if you wish to prepare an original contribution, please send an email before starting any work to receive approval, to minimize inadvertent duplication, and to learn about technical requirements. As is the case any series, posters should be created initially in English. If you want to volunteer to translate a poster into a language in which you are fluent, send in a note before starting, to receive approval and to confirm no one else is working on the same one.

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue
intercult.dialogue AT gmail.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Institute for Study Abroad: Custom Programs and Housing Manager (UK)

“JobCustom Programs and Housing Manager, Institute for Study Abroad, London, UK. Deadline: 27 April 2026.

Are you a lifelong learner with a curiosity about the world? Do you enjoy building meaningful programmes that support academic, personal, and intercultural growth for students? If so, you are invited to join IFSA’s global community as Custom Programmes and Housing Manager.

In this role, you will oversee the planning and delivery of IFSA’s custom academic programmes across England and Wales, while also managing IFSA-provided housing in London. You will play a key leadership role in ensuring high-quality academic, cultural, and logistical support for students, faculty, and partners, while leading a small, dedicated team.

Key Responsibilities:
* Oversee the end-to-end planning and delivery of custom programmes in England and Wales, ensuring deadlines, quality standards, and key performance indicators are met
* Prepare programme proposals and secure bookings for housing and cultural activities
* Provide academic, cultural, and operational support to faculty and programme participants
* Line manage Custom Programme Coordinators and short-term Programme Assistants, supporting performance, wellbeing, and professional development
* Collaborate with the Director, England and Wales Programmes and HR to recruit, train, and onboard staff
* Lead IFSA’s London housing strategy in partnership with senior leadership
* Manage relationships with housing providers and programme partners
* Ensure housing allocations maximise occupancy and meet diverse student needs
* Monitor provider compliance with IFSA health, safety, and wellbeing standards through evaluations and site visits
* Support onsite teams in resolving housing-related issues
* Contribute to student incident management and emergency response in line with established protocols

NYU London: Residence Life Administrator (UK)

“JobResidence Life Administrator, New York University in London, UK. Deadline: 26 April 2026.

NYU is committed to being a welcoming campus community that reflects and enacts the values of global inclusion, diversity, belonging, equity and accessibility that informs academic excellence. The position of Residence Life Administrator is a full-time position. The majority of working hours will be spent across NYU London’s campus buildings with a focus on Byron Court and Guilford House, which are operated by NYU London. Other work locations will include, but are not limited to the NYU London Academic Centre and NYU London’s externally partnered student accommodations locations. The postholders’ primary focus is to support residents and provide them with a living environment conducive to their academic and personal growth, across the calendar year with a focus on the fall and spring semesters.

The postholder will work as part of the Residential Life team to provide support and guidance for students; ensure compliance with University policies and procedures; maintain building safety and security; engage in customer service-related activities; supervise student leaders signposting students to other key resources; and other administrative tasks such as ordering supplies, checking deliveries, securely storing and monitoring stocks, checking and replenishing supplies in student apartments, providing and preparing keys for student rooms.

Responsibilities are carried out mainly through office hours and activities across NYU London’s campus buildings including weekly meetings, check in and checkout duties, welcome activities and campus events. The postholder will be on call during working hours, on a rotational basis shared with colleagues, and will respond to urgent issues that arise, supported by the senior members of the team and department. The position requires a positive service orientation while performing all duties.

ICA Regional Conference: Global Communication Shifts and Implications for Africa (Nigeria)

Conferences

Global Communication Shifts and Implications for Africa, International Communication Association Nigeria Chapter conference, 24-25 March 2026, Nile University, Abuja, Nigeria.

The global communication landscape is undergoing far-reaching transformations driven by rapid media and technological change, shifting geo-political power relations, intensifying climate pressures, and evolving cultural and religious narratives. These transformations do not unfold uniformly across regions. In Africa, they intersect with colonial legacies, uneven development, youthful demographics, gendered power relations, religious pluralism, and heightened vulnerability to climate change. As a result, Africa is not only embedded within global communication flows but also constitutes a critical site where global communication shifts are negotiated, contested, and redefined.

CFP NCA Public Dialogue & Deliberation Division 2026

Conferences

Call for submissions: Public Dialogue and Deliberation Division (PD3), National Communication Association, 19-22 November, 2026, New Orleans, LA, USA. Deadline: 25 March 2026.

The Public Dialogue and Deliberation division (PD3) is a vibrant and growing community of scholars, teachers, and practitioners who research, conceptualize, and facilitate public dialogue and deliberation, to support democratic engagement and social justice. They invite your contributions for the 112th NCA convention to be held in New Orleans, from November 19-22, 2026.

They welcome contributions that engage meaningfully with the 2026 NCA convention theme “MOVE/MENTS in Communication” and that demonstrate the rich potentials for public dialogue and deliberation scholarship, teaching, and practice. The theme of “MOVE/MENTS in Communication” invites us to consider how we are people on the move, prompting questions of “both/and” thinking. They encourage submissions to consider social, cultural, and political movements that reflect the rich potentiality, spaces, and challenges of dialogue and deliberation work. Following with the theme, the division welcomes submissions that question and examine how dialogue and deliberation moves us to action; what limits exist in research and practice; and what openings we should move into to discover new opportunities. The division has much to contribute to these conversations.

NOTE: All divisions of NCA are currently calling for submissions – see the formal announcement here.

U Reading: PhD Studentship in Comparative and Intercultural Studies (UK)

“Studentships“PhD Studentship in Comparative and Intercultural Studies, University of Reading, UK. Deadline: 31 March 2026.

Project title: Young Refugees to Britain in the early Twentieth Century

Department/School: Department of Languages and Cultures, School of Humanities

Supervisors: Dr Ellen Pilsworth, Dr Monja Stahlberger

“2026 marks 75 years since the Refugee convention (1951) outlined the definition of a refugee and the minimum legal obligations of the States who receive them. This Convention was a response to the millions of people displaced by European conflicts in the early part of the twentieth century. We are interested in the histories of European refugees who came to Britain in the decades before the Convention, with a specific focus on the experiences of children and young people still engaged in education or training.

Governments have often viewed children as more easily assimilated and less of an economic or administrative burden than adult refugees. Yet, research shows that children’s experiences of exile are far more complex: language acquisition, identity formation, and senses of belonging can follow unpredictable paths. Studying children offers a vital lens onto the assumptions and realities of displacement.

We welcome applications interested in the British reception of Belgian refugees during and after the First World War, as well as Italian, Spanish, Polish, Czecho‑Slovakian and other refugee and displaced groups in Britain in the broader context of the Second World War. Please note, we are not accepting proposals to work on German-speaking refugees, as this group is already represented in our project. We are open to any other relevant national group(s). Projects may take a comparative approach across the period ca. 1910-1950, or choose a narrower temporal focus.

The PhD topic should be based on original historical research, using sources that could include state and personal archives, published or unpublished memoirs, and oral history. The successful student will work alongside the UKRI-funded project ‘Nation of Refuge’.

CFP UNESCO Chair Conference 2026: Exploring Intercultural Competences in an African Context (Senegal)

EventsExploring Intercultural Competences in an African Context. UNESCO Chair on Intercultural Competences, Dakar, Senegal, 28 Sept-2 Oct 2026. Deadline: 1 April 2026.

The UNESCO Chair on Intercultural Competences hosted by Stellenbosch University will organize its 3rd Annual Conference in Dakar, Senegal. The conference will be held at Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) from 12 – 16 October 2026.

The theme of the Conference is: Exploring Intercultural Competences in African Contexts

The Chair invites contributions from academics, researchers, professionals, practitioners, educators, students, innovators, leaders, artists, and organisations with an interest in this theme. They encourage the following sub-themes:
● How do aspects of Intercultural Competence intersect with and influence climate action, gender equality, or peacebuilding?
● The existence and use of intercultural practices in pre-colonial times.
● Intercultural tools available to the practitioner (for example; Cultural diversity and ethics; Ethical encounters and interactions; Culturally responsive teaching; Collaborative Online International (intercultural) Learning (COIL); tools for understanding values across multi-cultural and multi-religious societies)
● African Youth Perspectives on Intercultural Competence
They welcome research, reflections, lived experiences and examples from practice that respond to the theme and sub-themes. While the conference focuses on African contexts, they also welcome perspectives and contributions from other regions of the world in relation to African contexts.

Maria Flora Mangano: The Making of the Posters: Between, Across (and Beyond) Translation

Guest PostsThe making of the posters: Between, across (and beyond) translation. Guest post by Maria Flora Mangano.

The translation of the posters for the Center for Intercultural Dialogue was a fascinating exercise in intercultural dialogue (a “deliberate attempt to understand members of different cultures,” as described by Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz in Poster #1).

This work implied the translation from the original English texts into Italian, and insertion of the new text into the original graphic design. It has been indeed something more, as it allowed us to practice and to deepen the meaning of intercultural dialogue as a “deliberate attempt” in understanding each other.

I often felt lost in translation, and afraid to have betrayed the original text. In Italian there is a play on words between the verbs “to translate” (tradurre) and “to betray” (tradire), which is absent in English.

Download the entire post as a PDF.