We are warmly inviting you to the 2026 Bath Conference on Earth System Governance, to be held in the historical city of Bath, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the United Kingdom. The conference is organized by the University of Bath and its Earth System Governance Research Centre Bath, which is hosted by the Department of Social and Policy Sciences. The main conference will take place 8-10 September across multiple venues in Bath city centre. The pre- and post-conference events on 7 and 11 September will be held on the University of Bath campus.
The 2026 Bath Conference will be the largest gathering of the Earth System Governance (ESG) community in 2026. It stands in a long tradition of global conferences on earth system governance, from Amsterdam (2007 and 2009) to Colorado (2011), Lund (2012), Tokyo (2013), Norwich (2014), Canberra (2015), Nairobi (2016), Lund (2017), Utrecht (2018), Oaxaca (2019), Virtual Forum (2020), Bratislava (2021), Toronto (2022), and Nijmegen (2023), hybrid ESG Forum (2024) and Johannesburg (2025). The organization of the conference is also supported by the new ESG Project International Office based at Uppsala University.
Main Conference – 8-10 September 2026
The main conference is organized around six streams, including the five analytical lenses of the ESG project and a sixth stream on the future of earth system governance, for which we invite participants to assess existing gaps and prospective reforms for improving sustainability governance in different contexts and at multiple scales. At the 2026 Bath Conference, participants will have the opportunity to join a Townhall to discuss initial steps towards the next Science Plan for the Earth System Governance Project. Building on the Nijmegen Agenda on Transformative Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, we also invite proposals from interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research with inputs from key stakeholders beyond academia.
Pre-conference event: Early Career Day – 7 September 2026
Prior to the main conference, on Monday 7 September 2026, we will organize a one-day gathering for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) on campus of the University of Bath. This will be an opportunity for ECRs to share their challenges and get advice on career development. Senior scholars in the ESG community and experienced practitioners will be invited to share experiences. The event will facilitate inter- and transdisciplinary exchange and help ECRs expand their networks. A symbolic participation fee will be charged to each participant to cover food and venue costs. More information will be announced in due time on the ESG conference website.
Key Dates
- Deadline for all submissions: 15 January 2026
- Notification of acceptance and open registration: 16 March 2026
- Deadline for early bird registration: 15 April 2026
- Deadline for registration of presenters: 15 May 2026
- Deadline for all registration: 15 July 2026
- Deadline to submit papers for the Oran R. Young Prize: 15 July 2026
- Deadline to full papers: 15 August 2026
Conference Streams
The 2026 Bath Conference will be organized around the five analytical lenses identified in the current Earth System Governance Science and Implementation Plan:
- Architecture and Agency;
- Democracy and Power;
- Justice and Allocation;
- Anticipation and Imagination;
- Adaptiveness and Reflexivity;
- and a sixth stream focusing on the future of earth system governance