Our Aims and Objectives
We are the UK association for all those who research, study and teach global development issues
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The Call for Panels is now OPEN!
#DSA2026 conference will be a hybrid event, organised and hosted by the University College Dublin with the support of NomadIT.
DSA2026 invites proposals for panels and workshops that engage critically with dimensions of this year’s theme: Reimagining development: power, agency and futures in an uncertain world. While DSA encourages convenors (those proposing/organising a panel) to address the issues outlined in the theme, this is not a prerequisite for panel acceptance. The conference is also open to submissions outside the conference theme of relevance to current development theory and practice, or topics covered by DSA Study Groups, even if these are not strongly aligned to the conference theme.
Different session formats for DSA2026 are encouraged, including debates, roundtables, ‘speed-meetings’, fireside meetings and other non-conventional formats. A key aim is for all panels to attempt to combine academic and practitioner work within most panels. The session formats will include:
Paper panels: These sessions will involve one or more sessions that are based around 4-5 papers, perhaps with a discussant. To promote the highest levels of intellectual exchange, we are looking for convenors who can commit to liaising closely with paper-givers in advance of the conference, with a view to securing high-quality papers. This may involve the submission of papers in advance, perhaps incentivised by a post-conference publication plan by panel convenors.
Roundtable panels: These sessions can adopt various formats to achieve the purpose of fostering a high-quality exchange of ideas around the theme of Reimagining development: power, agency, and futures in an uncertain world.
Experimental approaches to panels: These might fall outside regular academic paper panels or roundtables. Some possible formats or ideas might be debates, speed-meeting, workshops, asynchronous panels, fire-side etc. It may be possible to go beyond the 90 minute session format if required. The format should be described within the long abstract of the proposal.
Submissions from all social science disciplines are welcome. The past few years have seen exciting debates on the identity of development studies as an interdisciplinary field, as well as calls to decolonise both development and economics. The Call for Panels is open until 20 October 2025.
Decisions over panel proposals will be made by the Scientific Committee and communicated to all proposing convenors by 11 November in time for the opening of the call for papers on 13 November.
Rules
- Panel convenors may be graduate students.
- Convenors may also present a paper during the conference, either in their own panel or a different one.
- Due to the ‘competition for time’ within such a conference, colleagues are allowed to convene no more than one panel and present only one paper during the conference. This does not prevent you from making multiple proposals, but in the case of multiple acceptances we will ask you to make a choice.
- The DSA requires all accepted panels to be open to paper proposals through the website; you may of course propose a panel with specific contributors in mind, but when the call for papers opens, you should be open to the possibility of other contributions arriving via the open call.
- Panels convenors and paper presenters need not be members of the association. However, the DSA welcomes new members. Members of the association can register for the conference at a discounted fee.
- All convenors, authors, chairs and discussants will be expected to register online in advance of the event and pay a registration fee to attend.
- The DSA expects convenors of accepted panels to commit to the panel and conference: convenors will need to observe deadlines for action requested by the conference organisers, communicate with all those proposing papers to their panels to inform them of their decisions, and continue to communicate with the accepted presenters as the panel prepares for the event.
- Panel convenors will need to select which papers they wish to accept to their panel during the period 29 December 2025 – 19 January 2026 – please make sure you have time during that duration to dedicate to this task!
Conference format – hybrid
The conference is going to be hybrid and therefore it is crucial to make sure that panel convenors have a stable and fast enough internet access if they will choose to attend virtually.
If your internet connection tends to be unstable and you have been unable to share screen via Zoom (or other types of video calls), please make sure you find a co-convenor who can travel for the physical event in Dublin. This way, if the worst happens and the primary convenor is unable to lead the panel, the co-convenor can take over.
If you’d like to check your computer setup or internet connection in advance, we’d be happy to arrange a tech test during the preparation period — just let us know as soon as possible.