Call for Abstracts is open now! (deadline for submissions: December 19, 2025)
The 2026 conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE) will be held in Ghent, Belgium from June 30 to July 03 (Conference website).
This is ESEE’s 16th biennial conference, which will be held at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Ghent University, Belgium. ESEE extends warm thanks to the local organisers of this important conference for our Society.
The main theme is: Looking for (the) Just Judges – Promoting Sustainable and Inclusive Well-Being in Turbulent Times
The conference brings together ecological economists from across Europe, and is organized in collaboration with the city of Ghent and several local NGOs. It will host a series of keynote lectures, parallel sessions, poster sessions, and social activities.
The Call for Abstracts is out now and will be open until December 19th, 2025 (23:59).
The full Call is available here – it includes important submission information, details on next steps, and an overview of the full conference programme (including special sessions). Please read carefully before preparing a submission.
In addition, ESEE is proud to honour outstanding early-career researchers by awarding three Best Student Prizes to PhD students or recent PhD graduates that excel through their contributions to the conference. More details on these Prizes can be found in the Call, which include the submission of a full paper in May 2026.
Submissions are possible via ConfTool at https://www.conftool.pro/esee2026ghent/
Conference Programme
The ESEE2026 conference programme consists of 11 main tracks and 56 subtracks and 11 Open Special Subtracks (proposed by conference participants). The main tracks include:
- Beyond GDP: Rethinking Well-being and Prosperity
- Ecological Boundaries, Biophysical Realities and the Commons
- Justice, Equity, and Inclusive Futures
- Socio-Ecological Transformation in Times of Crisis
- Technology, Work and Care
- Institutional Innovation and Governance
- Ecological Macroeconomics, Public Finance, and Money
- Sufficiency, Values, and Behavioral Change
- Reimagining Places and the Urban-Rural Divide
- Rethinking Business and Finance
- Developments in Ecological Economics as a Scientific Field
The full programme – including a list of all subtracks and a description of each of the Open Special Subtracks – can be found here.
Next Steps
Accepted contributions will result in a time slot for a 15-20’ presentation during the ESEE2026 conference. There will be a maximum of 12 parallel sessions per time slot based on venue capacity at Ghent University. All submitted abstracts will be evaluated by mid-February, after which all participants will be notified. Registrations for ESEE2026 will be opened soon after that.