regional hubs – Center for Intercultural Dialogue

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.

Call for proposals: International Communication Association Regional Hub Grant Application, to participate in ICA 2023. Deadline: 1 December 2022.

“In conjunction with ICA’s hybrid annual conference slated for May 2023 in Toronto, Ontario (Canada), the Executive Committee has approved the continuation of our Regional Hubs program. Of course, ideally we would want everyone to join us in person, but for some–particularly those in areas with unreliable personal wifi access–we provide the opportunity to apply for modest financial support as an attendance “hub” for attendees in one area.

The proposed hub in question should nominate one person to fill out the application and serve as the sole point of contact for ICA headquarters. This person should, prior to filling out the application, ascertain how many attendees they anticipate inviting to take part in their hub experience, obtain permission from the facility in question, and include estimated expenses for both in their proposal. For instance, a university’s dean may want to activate a regional hub and can assume the participation of 12 local attendees (from the same region or country). A potential hub proposal might, for example, request:

WiFi support (to boost the wifi capabilities of the host site or university for the month in which the conference takes place), and
Funding for food & beverage over five days.
(NOTE: We discourage submitting expenses for attendee travel as part of your budget, as these hubs are meant to be hyper-local.)
The estimated number of attendees you anticipate.

You should base your application on YOUR group’s specific needs. Any funding awarded from ICA headquarters will be given directly to the hub organizer, not to individual attendees of that hub. As with a stand-alone regional conference, receipts and a final budget accounting for costs, with receipts, must be submitted upon the conclusion of the conference.”