Center for Intercultural Dialogue

UN Young Professionals Programme 2025-26

United Nations Young Professionals Programme, New York, USA. Deadline: 14 December 2025.

The UN Young Professionals Programme (YPP) is a recruitment initiative for talented, highly qualified professionals to start a career as an international civil servant with the UN Secretariat. It consists of an entrance examination process and professional development once those who are successful start their career with the UN.

The YPP examination is held once a year in different subject areas, depending on the needs of the UN. Global Communication is the subject area for this year’s YPP examination.

Participating countries:
Andorra, Angola, Belize, Brunei Darussalam, China, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Germany, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Israel, Japan, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Monaco, Nauru, Oman, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Qatar, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Vanuatu, Viet Nam.

Eligibility Criteria:
* Nationality of a participating Member State
* Bachelor’s degree or at least a 3-year equivalent degree relevant for the exam area
* 32 years of age or younger (born on or after 1 Jan. 1993)
* Fluency in English or French

Who Needs Intercultural Education? Deep Culture Podcast from Japan Intercultural Institute (Japan)

Who Needs Intercultural Education? Japan Intercultural Institute, Tokyo, Japan.

Joseph Shaules and Ishita Ray argue that the deeper goal of intercultural education is to see that our minds are shaped by culture. They explore natural biases, such as ethnocentrism and stereotypes, and the psychological impact of foreign experiences, including Oz moments and cultural shock. Emre Seven tells of his discovery that not everyone sees the world as he does.

Deep Culture Podcast explores the psychological impact of intercultural experiences, informed by the sciences of brain, culture and mind. They look at the personal growth that can come from—travel, working and living abroad, immigrating, learning a foreign language—and the challenges of bridging different cultural worlds. Other episodes available here.

CFP LRI Workshop for Early-Career Researchers: Oral Communication and Plurilingualism (Italy)

Call for papers: 8th LRI Workshop for Early-Career Researchers: Oral Communication and Plurilingualism, Merano, Italy, 11-12 June 2026. Submission deadline: 15 January 2026.

The Linguistic Colloquium Language, Region, Identity aims to foster scientific exchanges within the Alpine region and beyond. It is specifically targeted at early career researchers (PhD students and post-docs). The colloquia, jointly organised by a team from six universities and research centres in Austria, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, intend to offer a forum for discussing current and recently concluded projects. The biennial editions are organised around three keywords: language, region and identity.

Each Linguistic Colloquium workshop has a specific topic of interest. The 8th edition will address topics related to oral communication and plurilingualism. In contexts characterised by territorial multilingualism and/or increasing levels of linguistic diversity, language manifests itself as a complex dialogical process involving multiple resources – registers, varieties, and discourses – which speakers select to engage in processes of meaning-making, identity negotiation, and to act upon their realities.

With this in mind, organizers welcome contributions that deal with orality and spoken language, focusing in particular on oral communication in connection with:
• communicative acts within a specific genre of private or institutional communication, e.g., family talk, communication at school and university, with public authorities, medical practitioners, etc.;
• the linguistic features of spoken language from a phonetic-phonological, lexical, morphological, syntactical, pragmatic, or interactional point of view; this may also include the contrast between different languages and varieties or between spoken and written languages;
• the teaching and learning of oral competences in formal and informal contexts;
• the positioning of speakers from a sociolinguistic or variational linguistic perspective;
• translanguaging and mediation practices among plurilingual speakers in private or institutional settings;
• oral communication and spoken language in experiences of mobility and migration;
• methodological, epistemological and/or ontological challenges in research on oral communication and spoken language.

Different languages and varieties in the Alpine region will provide the focal points of the workshop; however, the workshop is also open to related topics and projects, including overarching dimensions such as language ideologies and Artificial Intelligence in connection with spoken language and orality.

US-Japan Leadership Program 2026/27 (Japan/USA)

Call for applications: US-Japan Leadership Program (USJLP). Deadline: 5 January 2026.

USJLP is the flagship program of the United States-Japan Foundation. It launched in 2000 with the purpose of developing a network of communication, friendship and understanding among the next generation of leaders in each country. With the goal of bridging the gap between East and West, the Program fosters a continuing dialogue among future leaders in a broad variety of professions. It starts this process by bringing some young leaders together from each country for two intensive weeklong conferences over two years, with discussions revolving around historical and current issues in bilateral relations, as well as issues reaching beyond our two countries. Through serious conversation as well as recreation and shared cultural activities it seeks to nurture lifelong friendships. The Program is designed to keep the leaders in touch with each other throughout their careers through a dedicated website and member directory, frequent reunions and newsletters, and online social networks.

Candidates for USJLP must:

🔹Hold U.S. or Japanese citizenship.
🔹Start their first Conference between the ages of 28 and 42.
🔹Have demonstrated leadership in their respective field.
🔹Feel comfortable expressing themselves in English.
🔹Commit to attending two consecutive seven-day Conferences over two summers and hold interest in lifelong engagement with USJLP.

Skylar Jeffries Profile

Skylar Jeffries graduated from New York University with a B.A. in Linguistics and Italian and an M.A. in Multilingual Multicultural Studies with dual certification in TESOL and Teaching Italian. During her graduate studies, she pursued international coursework and research in the Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, and mainland China, focusing on intercultural perspectives in teaching and learning.

She is currently Regional Director of Northeast School Partnerships for the High School Global Navigator Programs at CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange), an international exchange nonprofit, where she builds collaborations with schools, districts, and educators to expand access to academically aligned study abroad programming for high school students. In this role, she works with schools from New Jersey to Maine to share programs for students and professional development opportunities for educators. She oversees more than $9M annually in scholarship funds stewarded by CIEE which make study abroad opportunities accessible to thousands of high school students.

Skylar served on the board of the New York City and Westchester chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) from 2018-2025 and was Interim President from 2023-2025. Within the association, she organizes professional development, community engagement, and institutional collaborations for its members.

Previously, Skylar was an Italian and English teacher in the NYC Department of Education, where she also served as a teacher mentor and department lead, securing significant funding to support AP Italian at High School for Environmental Studies in Manhattan. Her earlier professional experience includes career advising at New York University’s Wasserman Center for Career Development, where she supported students in developing skills to enter into and succeed in global, multicultural professional environments.

Work for CID:

Skylar Jeffries was recently interviewed by Casey Man Kong Lum, Associate Director of the Center; the result will be published shortly.

Northeastern U: Associate Director of Global Student Success (USA)

Associate Director, Global Student Success, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA. Deadline: open until filled; posted 13 November 2025.

With supervision from the Director of Global Student Success, the Associate Director (AD) is responsible for the successful delivery of a significant portfolio of Northeastern signature cohort-based programs for first-year students, such as the first-semester-abroad N.U.in Program and the first-year-away New York City Scholars program, and contributes to the management of programs in Northeastern’s Global Network. The AD will directly supervise a team of Student Success Managers and may also supervise an Assistant Director. The AD designs and implements program goals with a special emphasis on student services, crisis management, student support, health and safety, staff training, staff professional development, and program execution. The AD is accountable for the day-to-day operations of their assigned sites and proactive collaboration with the Global Experiential Office, Student Life staff, Human Resources and other departments across Northeastern University. The AD rotates as part of an on-call emergency triage team throughout the academic year, responding to emergencies and serving as the first point of escalation, including outside of office hours. They may act as the Director’s representative during periods of Director’s absence or unavailability.

The AD is expected to travel domestically and internationally to conduct trainings and site visits. This position can be based in Boston but is not required to be based in Boston (though must reside in the US and possess a valid US passport), with extensive travel to provide oversight of program staff and sites. A hybrid work schedule is possible for Boston-based staff.

U Macau: Head, Department of Communication (China)

Head, Department of Communication, University of Macau, China. Deadline: 13 December 2025.

The Faculty of Social Sciences seeks to appoint an internationally accomplished scholar to lead the Department of Communication. The appointment will be made at the rank of Professor, Distinguished Professor or Chair Professor. The candidate should have strong credentials including an international research profile, a distinguished record of academic achievements, exceptional leadership and management skills, and strategic vision. While the post is open to all areas and methodological approaches of media and communication studies, we are especially interested in candidates with an established international reputation and whose academic expertise is relevant to the concerns of Macao and the Greater China region. The successful candidate will possess:

A PhD degree in communication, mass communication, media studies, or related fields;
Expertise and knowledge in one or more sub-disciplines such as research methodology, journalism, advertising, public relations, new media, and/or international/intercultural communication;
An outstanding record of internationally-recognized research and scholarship;
A proven record of excellent teaching;
Demonstrable competence in management, planning, and communication;
Ability to play a leadership role in the Department;
Proficiency in English is required as it is the working language, while knowledge in Chinese or Portuguese will be an advantage.

International House Association

International House Association (IHA), a global nonprofit connecting a network of historic International Houses around the world, announced on 22 October 2025 its official launch and mission to focus on advancing peacebuilding, global citizenship and intercultural leadership.

Inspired by the pioneering spirit that led to the establishment of the historic International Houses in New York (1924), Berkeley (1930), Chicago (1932), Paris (1936), Tokyo (1952), and London (1965), we serve as conveyors, sources of analysis of current events, curators of cultural content, as educators, and as a group of global institutions committed to furthering understanding across the broad set of communities we serve.

Rooted in a legacy that began in 1924 with the founding of International House New York and formally organized with Rockefeller support in 1939, the Association has relaunched to meet the demands of a more divided, globalized and complex world. The revitalized IHA builds on a century of fostering successful cross-cultural understanding through intentional living, learning and engagement. The goal is to foster a global community committed to peace through cultural exchange, open discourse, and intellectual collaboration. Its member Houses serve as incubators of dialogue and leadership in major academic and metropolitan centers worldwide.

International Houses typically are based on a major university campus. They were designed as a way for international students to connect with local peers. For the last hundred years, they have been doing just that. Read the history of the project here.

Paid Translation Opportunity for a Bilingual Speaker of Portuguese

Arte-Via Cooperativa, in Portugal, is looking for translators of a book by Ana Filomena Amaral, The Director.

There is funding available to support the translation of this book, from the Ministry of Culture. The Director focuses on the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, adapting it to the current reality. Contemporary problems are addressed, from the destruction of the oceans to the genocide of Armenians, corruption at the highest level and the predatory greed that threatens the planet, including the situation of Syrian refugees, in the perspective of what humanity wants for the future and what way is compromising you. The question of immortality is nuclear, as in the Gilgamesh epic.

The book has already been translated into Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, English, Finnish, Greek, Indonesian, Spanish, and Swedish.

The deadline for submission to them is in March 2026, but the application must come from a publisher. If you do not have an existing relationship with a publisher for your language, contact Arte-Via Cooperativa to work on this project with them ahead of time.

CFP: IN SITU Final Conference (Latvia)

Call for papers, IN SITU: Final Conference, Culture Matters Here. Cultivating Creative Place-based Innovation in Non-urban Communities, Valmiera, Latvia, 11-13 May 2026. Deadline: 8 December 2025 (extended to 15 December).

This event will be a catalyst for networking, exchange, and knowledge-building among participants, furthering understanding of the issues and opportunities for rural creative work, and contributing to a more supportive environment for cultural and creative actors in non-urban areas.

Organizers invite scholars, researchers, artists, cultural practitioners, activists, policymakers, and decision-makers from across the world and a wide variety of disciplines to submit proposals for presentations of papers and projects. They welcome participation by the large community of the European Rural Pact, including the Community Group on Culture and Creativity in Rural Areas. A special geographical focus will be placed on innovative and sustainable cultural and creative practices in remote areas and peripheral corners of Europe.

All submissions should offer an original contribution to the vital topic of place-based innovation and the transformative power of the creative and cultural sector in forging more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable communities in rural and non-urban areas. Participants will also share key insights from their research, highlight project results, and look ahead to future plans. Additionally, the event will host the premiere of the IN SITU documentary, offering an inside look at Labs and case studies

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