Conferences That Work

Discussion is building around expanding the College Football Playoff to 24 teams. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said a decision on further playoff expansion will come 'sooner rather than later', fuelling debate among fans and analysts about how a larger field would work, which conferences would benefit, and how soon changes could take effect beyond the current 12-team format.

The European Physical Society has issued a call for bids to host its 60th anniversary conference, planned for Spring 2028. Member institutions and national societies can submit proposals, with a bid submission deadline of 15 December 2026. The event will mark six decades of the society's work coordinating physics research and policy across Europe.

Charleston 2026, a library and scholarly publishing conference, is set to address how publishers and libraries can secure a fair financial return as artificial intelligence reshapes the information economy. Discussions will focus on licensing, content use by AI systems, and ensuring stakeholders are compensated when their work trains or feeds AI tools.

The Systems Approaches to Cancer Biology (SACB) meeting has been announced for 2027. The conference brings together researchers working on computational and systems-level methods to study cancer biology, including modelling of tumour behaviour and treatment responses. Details on venue, dates and speakers are expected to follow. The announcement is being picked up by oncology news outlets tracking major scientific meetings in the field.

The Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church is holding its gathering under the theme 'Reclaiming the kin-dom together', language that stresses shared discipleship, fellowship and collective mission among Iowa's United Methodist congregations. Such annual conference sessions typically bring clergy and lay members together for worship, business and planning, and the kin-dom framing signals an emphasis on unity and cooperation across the church's work in the state.

A scholarly publisher has retracted roughly 1,400 conference papers in a single day, described as a record-breaking mass retraction. It follows a separate wave of 1,622 articles retracted by IEEE, identified through work by researchers including Abalkina and Kunešová investigating compromised or fraudulent conference proceedings. The scale of the withdrawals highlights growing concern over paper mills and fake research entering the scholarly record.

Newly awarded Nobel laureates in Physics, Chemistry and Economic Sciences appeared together at a press conference in Stockholm following the announcement of this year's prizes. The laureates discussed their winning research, answered questions about the science behind their discoveries, and reflected on the significance of their work. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the physics and chemistry prizes, hosted the event as part of Nobel Week.

Generative Legal held a conference at Cornell Tech focused on 'productizing' legal work in the AI age. The event brought together members of the legal and technology communities to discuss how generative AI can turn traditional legal services into scalable products. Attendees examined what this shift means for law firms, in-house teams and the delivery of legal services more broadly.

Organizers of the 19th International Conference on Contracts are reminding scholars that paper submissions close on Friday. The conference will also honour three scholars in the field: Lisa Bernstein, Robert Scott, and William Whitford. Academics in contract law are being encouraged to submit work and join the scholarly community at the event.

ECMWF and the Copernicus Climate Change and Atmosphere Monitoring services are presenting their work at the COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Turkey. The services provide global climate data, forecasts and monitoring that inform negotiations and national climate planning, and their participation highlights the role of satellite-based Earth observation in supporting international climate policy discussions.

Mayte Arráez González of the European Central Bank is set to speak on the digital euro at Sibos 2026, the global financial services conference. Her remarks come as the ECB continues preparatory work on a potential digital euro, a project watched closely by banks, payment providers and policymakers weighing its impact on Europe's payments landscape.