We are delighted to announce that Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (Spain) will host the 2026 European ESA Meeting, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the ESA. The conference will feature keynote talks, special sessions, parallel sessions, and a new faculty-student meeting organized in the spirit of Reinhard Selten (Nobel prize winner in 1994 and founder of the first lab in Europe), who famously noted: "I especially enjoy meeting young researchers because their minds are still open to being shaped (formbar) and they may bring unconventional perspectives."

Alongside the conference, there will be a workshop in honor of Jordi Brandts (link) and you are all welcome to register and attend.

Key Dates

• 13 April: Submission opens
• 11 May: Submission Deadline
• 25 May: Notification of acceptance & registration opens
• 23 June: Early registration deadline
• 15 July: Standard registration deadline
• 2 September: Pre-conference workshop in honor of Jordi Brandts
• 2 September (18:00) – 5 September: Conference

Keynote Speakers & Special Sessions

Keynote Speakers:

• Antonio Cabrales (Universidad Carlos III)
• Axel Ockenfels (University of Cologne)
• Marta Serra-Garcia (University of California, San Diego)
• Elke Weber (Princeton University)

Special Sessions:

• Session on Cognitive Economics
  • Eric Johnson (Organizer, Columbia University)
  • Thomas Graeber (University of Zurich)
  • Michael Thaler (University College London)
• Panel: 40 Years of ESA - A European Perspective
  • Jordi Brandts (IAE-CSIC)
  • Graham Loomes (Warwick University)
  • Karim Sadrieh (University of Magdeburg)
  • Andrej Svorencik (UB and UPenn)
  • Marie Claire Villeval (CNRS and GATE Lab)
  • Moderator: Rosemarie Nagel (ICREA-UPF-BSE)

Organizers

• Anna Bayona (ESADE Business School)
• Rosemarie Nagel (ICREA, Pompeu Fabra University & BSE)
• Daniel Navarro-Martinez (Pompeu Fabra University & BSE)

Contact

• esa2026@upf.edu

Schedule and timetable.
Wednesdays March, April and May 2026, from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

Location
Room En Construcció - Building 54. Àrea Tallers - Campus del Poblenou, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

About the event

The PhD candidates of the CINEMA Group (Col·lectiu d’Investigació Estètica dels Mitjans Audiovisuals) at Pompeu Fabra University are organizing the third edition of the “Trobades Audiovisuals de Doctorat” in 2026, a meeting point for all those conducting a doctoral thesis focused on audiovisual studies. At each session, one student will present a screening related to their doctoral research in the “En Construcció” Room. Attendees will be able to engage in dialogue and contribute ideas from their own knowledge and methodological backgrounds. In this way, we will build connections, discover new audiovisual works, and discuss our research projects. The encounters are open to anyone interested in audiovisual research.

Hosted by

Date and location
May 13, 2026, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Location
Sala En Construcció - Building 54.Àrea Tallers - Campus del Poblenou, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

About the seminar

Meeting to share methodologies, ideas, and research projects in star studies and female figuration, carried out within the Spanish university context.

This seminar is part of the project PID2021-124377NB-I00, funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by FEDER, EU.

Hosted by

Date and time
May 14-15, 2026 at 11.am

Location
Campus del Poblenou, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

About the seminar

We are pleased to announce the upcoming meeting event Transformations in Communication & Culture, to be held on 14–15 May 2026 in our department.

This event brings together scholars and researchers to explore contemporary topics in culture, communication, and digital wellbeing.

For this first edition, the TCC meeting will host visiting scholars, Prof. Mohammed Adli and Prof. Omar El Otmani from Mohammed I University (Oujda, Morocco), who will deliver two keynote presentations addressing how culture and identity shape socio-political, economic, and technological contexts in Morocco and beyond.

We warmly invite researchers and PhD students from our department who are interested in these topics to participate in this two-day event. A certificate of attendance will be provided. 

Hosted by

Workshop on Tense and Aspect in Analytic Forms

• 28-29 May, 2026
• Room 55.410, Tànger building

Meeting description:

Tense and Aspect are fundamental categories in the architecture of grammar. Both situate eventualities in time, but they do so in different ways: tense anchors the time of the event deictically to the time of the utterance, yielding present, past, or future distinctions, either directly or through the mediation of a reference time (Comrie 1985, Bybee 1992). Aspect, on the other hand, refers to the internal temporal constituency of the event, encoding distinctions such as perfective, imperfective, and ingressive, among others (Vendler 1957, Verkuyl 1972, Comrie 1976, Dowty 1979, Smith 1991).

In addition to the inflectional encoding on the verb of Tense and Aspect, well attested cross-linguistically, another common strategy consists in analytic constructions, which combine auxiliary verbs, particles, or other functional elements with lexical verbs. This variation occurs not only cross-linguistically, but also language-internally, where some Tense/Aspect distinctions may be expressed synthetically and others analytically or periphrastically.

This workshop specifically aims to explore the morphosyntactic and semantic properties of analytic Tense and Aspect constructions from theoretical, descriptive, and comparative perspectives. In particular, it seeks to offer new insights into the cross-linguistic expression of temporal and aspectual meanings in analytic constructions, also considering how Tense and Aspect are semantically and syntactically intertwined with each other across languages.

We invite contributions on any area regarding the syntactic and semantic dimensions of Tense and Aspect, including but not limited to the following lines:
a) How are aspectual periphrases syntactically and semantically encoded (resultatives, progressives…)?
b) What is the contribution of auxiliaries and light verbs in compound tenses?
c) What are the semantic and/or morpho-syntactic factors regulating the distribution of synthetic vs analytic Tense/Aspect constructions?
d) How do modality- or Mood-related interpretations of Tense arise (e.g, “fake/repurposed tenses” in counterfactuals)?
e) What are the semantic/pragmatic implications of super-compound tenses?

https://sites.google.com/view/taafworkshop-upf

The MELIS-UPF 2026 Biomedical Research Symposium will take place on June 4 and 5 in the PRBB Auditorium.

List of invited speakers:

Ens plau informar-vos que el 78è. Congrés de la Comissió Internacional per a l’Estudi de la Història de les Institucions Representatives i Parlamentàries (ICHRPI) tindrà lloc a Barcelona de l’1 al 4 de setembre del 2026. El congrés estarà organitzat en el marc de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra i gràcies a la valuosa col·laboració del Parlament de Catalunya, el Departament d’Humanitats de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra, l’Observatori Europeu de Memòries (EUROM) de la Fundació Solidaritat UB, l’Institut d’Història Jaume Vicens i Vives (IUHJVV) i la Societat Catalana d’Estudis Històrics, de l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans (SCEH/IEC).

DATA FOR POLICY 2026

Data For Policy, September 8th to 10th, 2026

The tenth edition of the conference will focus on the reshaping effects of AI in governance and decision making.  This year has witnessed a significant paradigm shift, sparking increased interest in and concern regarding AI governance. The development of AI and data infrastructure has become essential amid the 'AI War' between the United States and China, the hybrid conflicts in Europe, and the deployment of military technologies in the Middle East. Strategic investments now prioritize access to frontier technologies, the securing of critical minerals, energy production, and key locations for water supply and cooling. AI is challenging not only global economies but also political systems. We have entered an era where AI influences geopolitics, often at the expense of fundamental rights and values.

The theme “Governance of/with AI” addresses the diverse global perspectives on this evolving technology. As AI continues to transform, it presents both unprecedented opportunities and complex challenges; furthermore, emerging developments such as quantum computing heighten existing uncertainties. 

This theme calls for a responsible and ethical societal response while fostering debate across multiple disciplines. We invite reflections and evidence-based research that explore and contest these views. Ranging from geopolitical promises to large-scale investments, social consequences, and legal frameworks, AI has become a truly transdisciplinary field. We welcome contributions from engineering, the humanities, and the social sciences that offer transformative perspectives on our collective future.