Call for proposals of Regional Hubs to complement International Communication Association convention, Cape Town, South Africa, 4-8 June 2026. Deadline: 1 November 2025.
In conjunction with the 76th Annual ICA Conference (ICA26) on 4-8 June 2026 in Cape Town, South Africa, ICA will once again welcome Regional Hubs worldwide to host events concurrent with the annual ICA conference. ICA’s Regional Hubs offers a window into ICA – its community and scholarship. They provide communication scholars in various regions around the world an opportunity to foster community and build intellectual networks. It reflects ICA’s commitment to welcome and support a broader global community of communication scholars.
While there is no substitute for an in-person experience at an ICA conference, organizers recognize that a significant and growing proportion of current and potential ICA membership resides in the Global South, making travel to in-person attendance inaccessible due to fiscal, political, environmental, health, and other hurdles.
In response to these concerns, ICA’s Regional Hubs Initiative offers a window into ICA – its community and scholarship. The Regional Hubs also provide communication scholars in various Regions around the world an opportunity to foster community and build intellectual networks. It reflects ICA’s commitment to welcome and support a broader global community of communication scholars. Since its inception at the virtual ICA 2021 and continuing at the hybrid conferences in ICA22, ICA23, ICA24, and ICA25, each year, the organization has hosted around 10 ICA Regional Hubs.
Regional Hubs host sessions for regional submissions, with some Hubs receiving over 100 submissions, from which some were selected for oral presentation and others for posters. Most of the Hubs hosted themed workshops and invited lectures from local and global scholars, including some who joined from other Regional Hubs and others from the main ICA Conference location.
Some Hubs live-streamed presentations and sessions from the primary conference location (Paris in 2022, Toronto in 2023, Gold Coast in 2024, and Denver in 2025) and organized local panels to facilitate discussion around them. A few organized Blue Sky workshops or workshops on special topics such as scholarly publishing, submitting grants, and scholarship applications. Some Hubs live-streamed their locally-originated events on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube and often garnered considerable local media coverage. In some cases, the Hubs hosted those presenting papers selected for the ICA conference remotely from their locations. Finally, after the selection of Hubs, some Hubs collaborated on organizing joint Hub-to-Hub sessions.
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 