The Conference Coordinating Committee of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) invites proposals to host the Digital Humanities Conference in 2026 (DH2026).
Digital Humanities (DH) is ADHO’s annual international conference. ADHO’s constituent organizations are the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (aaDH), the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH), the Canadian Society for Digital Humanities / Société canadienne des humanités numériques (CSDH/SCHN), centerNet, the Digital Humanities Alliance for Research and Teaching Innovations (DHARTI) the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA), Digital Humanities im deutschsprachigen Raum (DHd), the European Association for Digital Humanities (EADH), Humanistica, l’association francophone des humanités numériques (Humanistica), the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities (JADH), the Korean Association for Digital Humanities / 한국디지털인문학협의회 (KADH), Red de Humanidades Digitales (RedHD), and the Taiwanese Association for Digital Humanities (TADH).
The next DH conference, DH2024, will be held 6-9 August 2024 in Washington DC, USA, organized by the George Mason University, and DH2025 will be held in Lisbon, Portugal and will be organized by the Universidade NOVA.
For DH2026 the call for hosts is “open”, meaning that we invite bids from academic institutions anywhere in the world in coordination with a designated ADHO constituent organization (see list above). We are particularly interested in proposals from institutions or groups of institutions that have developed or are developing digital humanities communities and organizations, have not previously hosted a DH conference, and/or are interested in developing new modes of conference organization and participation. In 2024, ADHO is going back to the original three year time table for the Conference organization. To achieve this, in June/July 2024, we will launch the Call for Hosts for the Digital Humanities Conference 2027 (DH2027). We recommend you to keep these dates in mind in order to apply to either or both of these Calls.
Please note that the Local Organizers must be members of one of the ADHO constituent organizations listed above.
Conference Information
The conference has traditionally attracted between 500-1000 attendees. It consists of 3 days of panel, paper, and poster sessions, preceded by 2 days of workshops and tutorials. There are normally 6 or more parallel sessions per time slot and a small number of plenary presentations and receptions. Meetings of the committees of ADHO’s Constituent Organizations (COs) precede the conference, and lunchtime slots are normally used for the member meetings of the COs.
Academic Program and Program Committee Responsibilities
The peer-reviewed academic program for the conference is developed by an international Program Committee, the members of which are appointed by the Constituent Organizations (COs), with Program Committee (PC) co-chairs nominated by the host CO(s) for the conference.
Local Organizers’ Responsibilities
Local Organizers are responsible for developing the conference website, providing facilities, organizing a conference banquet, and coordinating any other social events that the local hosts think appropriate. The conference is entirely self-financed through conference fees and any other financial contributions that ADHO or the Local Organizer is able to arrange. ADHO provides partial financial underwriting of the conference (and can, in certain circumstances, advance small amounts of funds for expenses that need to be prepaid) and works together with the Local Organizers to ensure that registration fees and other income will support all conference expenditures; the details can be found in the ADHO Conference Protocol and related documentation. ADHO also finances established conference awards, such as named prizes or bursaries. Plenary speakers are selected by the Program Committee in consultation with the Local Organizers, and associated costs are funded from the conference budget; again, see the Conference Protocol for details. The Local Organizers are expected to set four levels of registration fees: for members of ADHO Constituent Organizations; for non-members; for students (members and non-members), as well as a rate offered to anyone in an emerging country (as defined by the World Bank).
The ADHO Conference Coordinating Committee (CCC) and Executive Board (EB) provide guidance and advice to both Local Organizers and the Program Committee to promote continuity, adherence to the protocol, and coordination with other ADHO committees related to e.g. Awards, Communications, and Multilingualism & Multiculturalism.
ADHO uses the conference management system ConfTool, and the ADHO Infrastructure and Conference Coordinating committees provide support for this system, including access to data from previous conferences. Local Organizers are required to use the ConfTool system for registering participants and including them in special events such as the banquet, but actual credit card payments may be processed outside ConfTool by the Local Organizer.
Proposal Process
Parties interested in submitting a proposal should contact one or more Constituent Organizations by 1 April 2024 to express interest and request support. Potential Local Organizers (LOs) should then inform the chair of the ADHO Conference Coordinating Committee (CCC), Miriam Peña (miriampp@unam.mx), of their intention to submit a bid (no later than 1 May 2024). The CCC chair will then provide a packet of information and guidelines including protocols, codes of conduct, financial models, and examples of past successful conference bids, as well as a sample memorandum of understanding between ADHO and Local Organizers. Documentation can be found here: https://adho.org/conference. Proposals should be submitted to Miriam Peña by 15 June 2024.
With respect to the academic program for the conference, proposals should include:
- Indication of which CO(s) will serve as the academic host(s) for the conference;
- names and brief statements of relevant experience for at least four nominees for the PC co-chair position who have indicated willingness to serve, nominated by the host CO(s) in consultation with the Local Organizers. Note that past experience of serving on the Program Committee can be a major advantage when it comes to serving as a PC co-chair, and also that strong proposals will represent diversity (e.g. of institution/location/field/identity), for which reason COs are invited to consider issuing an open call for potential co-chairs;
- proposed conference theme and any other distinguishing aspects of the academic program.
With respect to both the academic program and local arrangements, applicants are invited to outline ideas that address issues of diversity, representation, and labor in connection with the conference generally or with the conference’s location and/or theme. Specifically, the Constituent Organizations Board (COB) and the CCC invite innovation with respect to:
- Strategies regarding multilingualism
- Intersectional inclusion (equity, diversity, and inclusion)
- Labor (volunteering and paid work)
These ideas – which may or may not depart from the current conference protocol – will be discussed with the proposers at the ADHO COB meeting. Interested hosts are invited to reach out to the CCC as early as possible to discuss ideas. ADHO is actively working to review and revise its policies in these areas, particularly with respect to the conference, so there may be initiatives in progress with which DH2025 organizers can collaborate.
With respect to the local arrangements, proposals should include:
- an overview of facilities at the conference venue(s);
- a summary of local institutional engagement and support for the organizers;
- options for accommodation, including provisional costs and special attention to affordable housing;
- travel information and advice for participants;
- a provisional budget, with an estimated registration fee;
- options for payment (credit card, foreign currency, etc.) by participants;
- a brief outline of potential approaches to conference sponsorship;
- brief statements of relevant experience for the main Local Organizers, who are not all necessarily members of the host institution(s);
- conference format (hybrid/in-person/remote), including provision for forms of participation to reduce environmental impact and increase access;
- possible arrangements for social events, including the conference banquet;
- possible optional excursions to experience local sights and culture the day after the conference (this is however not a requirement for the bid);
- any other information that will help the ADHO COB make a selection.
The DH2026 host will be selected at the DH2024 conference. Proposers must be prepared to give a short presentation and to answer questions at the ADHO Constituent Organizations Board meeting on Monday 5 August at DH2024.