Call for Papers
The Climate Change: Impacts & Responses Research Network invites proposals for the Nineteenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses, to be held 20–22 January 2027 in Johannesburg, South Africa, hosted by the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of the Witwatersrand, with integrated online participation via CGScholar Event (KX). This conference is being developed in association with the On Sustainability Research Network, creating a shared space for dialogue across climate change, environmental systems, social transformation, policy, design, and culture.
Special Focus and Conference Themes
The special focus of the 2027 conference, “Innovating for Sustainable Futures,” explores how climate change is reshaping the conditions of environmental, social, economic, and political life, and how innovation can help build more sustainable futures. Innovation is understood broadly here—not only as technical invention, but also as new ways of thinking, organizing, designing, governing, and living in response to planetary change. The conference invites contributions that examine how climate challenges are being addressed across multiple scales, from local communities and regional infrastructures to global systems of policy, finance, and knowledge. The conference creates space for work that is both critically reflective and practically engaged, asking how innovation might support transitions that are resilient, equitable, and ecologically grounded.
Conference themes include:
- Rethinking Innovation for Climate Futures: Exploring how innovation can be understood beyond technology alone, including social, cultural, institutional, and political experimentation in response to climate change.
- Resilient Communities, Just Transitions: Examining adaptation, mitigation, governance, and community-led responses that support fairer and more inclusive pathways through environmental transformation.
- Designing Sustainable Environments: Considering the role of the built environment, infrastructure, mobility, energy systems, and urban-regional planning in creating low-carbon and climate-responsive futures.
- Knowledge, Collaboration, and Action: Investigating how research, education, policy, and cross-sector collaboration can generate meaningful climate action and support long-term sustainability.
Alongside the special focus, the conference welcomes proposals that address climate risk, resilience, justice, adaptation, and transformation across diverse environmental and social contexts, and that contribute to interdisciplinary dialogue on sustainable futures at local, regional, and global scales.
Knowledge Experience
The conference will be held in a hybrid format, combining in-person sessions in Johannesburg with live online sessions and asynchronous presentations hosted on CGScholar. All registered delegates—whether attending in person or online—will have access to the full online program and its growing archive of presentations and discussions. Hosted in CGScholar’s Event (KX) environment, the conference is conceived as part of an ongoing knowledge experience rather than a one-off meeting.
Publication Opportunities
Accepted presenters are invited to develop their work for publication in The International Journal of Climate Change: Impacts and Responses and related book imprint of the Climate Change: Impacts & Responses Research Network. Submissions follow peer-review processes aligned with the scholarly standards of the Network.
Membership and Community
By members, for members: membership is included in all Presenter Passes, making conference participation a meaningful way to activate and extend engagement across the year. Membership supports the ongoing work of the Research Network—its conferences, journals, books, and shared digital community.
Who Should Attend
The conference welcomes researchers, educators, practitioners, policymakers, designers, planners, activists, and community leaders whose work addresses climate change and its impacts, as well as the responses needed to create sustainable futures.
We invite proposals from across the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, design fields, and professional practice, especially those that bring interdisciplinary perspectives to urgent environmental challenges.
We welcome proposal submissions for papers, workshops, colloquia, posters, and practice-based presentations. Whether you are presenting research, policy work, design innovation, or community-based initiatives, the conference offers a space for dialogue across disciplines, sectors, and regions.
Sincerely,
Dr. Chryssi Vitsilaki, Conference Chair, University of the Aegean, Greece
Dr. Victoria Hurth, Research Network Chair, Institute for Sustainability Leadership, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Dr. Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, Chief Social Scientist, Common Ground Research Networks, United States of America