News

Compassion, Complexity, and Change: Navigating a Polycrisis World
21-23 October 2026 | The University of Western Australia, Perth

The Asia Pacific Social Marketing Conference (APSMC) is opening its doors to researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and innovators working at the frontlines of social change. This is your chance to contribute to one of the region’s most important conversations about how we tackle complex, interconnected challenges facing our communities.

What’s the conference about?

APSMC 2026 carries a theme that feels urgent and necessary: Compassion, Complexity, and Change: Navigating a Polycrisis World. We’re living through overlapping crises—climate change, public health challenges, social inequality, technological disruption—and they don’t exist in isolation. They interact across systems, sectors, and levels of society in ways that demand new thinking.

The conference asks: how can social marketing respond ethically and effectively when everything’s connected? What does it mean to centre care and dignity whilst recognising the real constraints and unintended consequences of our work? And how do we harness technology responsibly whilst building trust in institutions?

These aren’t abstract questions. They’re shaping the work you’re doing right now.

Who should submit?

Whether you’re a researcher with findings that challenge conventional thinking, a practitioner with hard-won lessons from the field, a policymaker exploring systems-level change, or a doctoral researcher breaking new ground — APSMC wants to hear from you.

The conference is deliberately broad. You might be working on public health and wellbeing, climate and sustainability, social equity and inclusion, digital innovation, artificial intelligence and ethics, Indigenous and culturally informed approaches, multi-stakeholder partnerships, research–practice collaboration, or something that doesn’t fit neatly into these boxes. If it matters to social marketing and social change in the Asia-Pacific region, it belongs here.

What can you submit?

The conference accepts:

Full research papers that present original findings or theoretical developments.

Working papers and research-in-progress if you’re still testing ideas.

Conceptual and theoretical papers that push thinking forward.

Case studies and practitioner reflections that turn experience into insight.

The conference is also practitioner-friendly. You don’t need to write like an academic journal if that’s not your world. There are tailored submission templates for both academic and practitioner contributions.

Important dates

The call for papers opens 1 February 2026. You’ve got until 30 April to submit. Acceptances go out 20 June, early-bird registration opens 30 August, and the conference itself runs 21–23 October in Perth at the University of Western Australia.

Next steps

Head to the conference webpage for submission guidelines, templates, and the submission platform. If you’ve got questions, get in touch. The conversation is already starting; this is your moment to join it.

---