Call for proposals for the SIG Writing conference 2026

Together with ZHAW, the EARLI Special Interest Group (SIG) Writing invites scholars to submit proposals for the 21st biennial SIG Writing Conference 2026, which will take place from 2 – 4 June 2026, at ZHAW in Winterthur. Predating the conference is the SIG Writing Research School to be held from 29 May – 1 June 2026 in Männedorf. Both the conference and the research school are supported by CLARIN-CH.

This year’s theme is “Writing Research for Writing Practice” exploring the dynamic relationship between research and practice in writing, as well as aiming to highlight how empirical findings, theoretical advances, and methodological innovations can inform and transform writing instruction, assessment, and professional development. The organisers welcome contributions that bridge the gap between research and real-world writing contexts in schools, universities, or workplaces. Although, the conference specifically welcomes submissions within its annual theme, it traditionally hosts a diversity of topics and approaches.

Keynote talks

The 2026 edition of the conference features two keynotes and the Hayes Award Lecture.

The professor of education and multilingualism, working on a range of educational issues regarding language learning and teaching in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms, Vera Busse from the University of Münster (Germany) will hold a keynote speech titled: “Bridging Research and Classroom Practice: Improving Writing in Diverse Primary Classrooms”.
Associate professor in the applied linguistics and technology program, Evgeny Chukharev from the Iowa State University (USA) will present on the “Cognitive and Ethical Alignment of LLMs with Humans for Writing Research and Instruction” integrating approaches from computer science, psycholinguistics, and the learning sciences.
The Hayes Award Lecture will be held by university professor of primary school education Markus Linnemann from the University of Koblenz (Germany) and is titled “Writing Fluency in the Perspective of Fluency Research”.

Call for proposals

Researchers can choose between five presentation formats for which proposals may be submitted for.

Paper

Submissions for papers are in the form of a 250-350 word abstract which should include: the research topic, the theoretical framework, the methodological design, the expected findings, the relevance to domain of writing, and four keywords.

Symposium

The submission for the symposium is in the form of a single description of 250-350 words and the abstracts for all the papers to be presented in the symposium (each abstract should be no longer than 350 words).

Roundtable

Please submit a plan that includes the title and the abstract (250-350 words, incl. references), stating the topic and objective of the roundtable.

Poster

For the presentation of a poster, an abstract of 250-350 words should be submitted.

Demonstration

The proposal consists of an abstract of 250-350 words (including references) presenting a tool or method, its novelty and applicability.

Submission details

Submissions must be written in English and submitted through the online submission system. The deadline for submissions is 17 December 2025. Please note that this is a hard deadline which will not be extended.

The organisers ask submitters to also kindly sign-up as reviewers.

Restrictions

In order to balance people being involved in conference activities, some restrictions have been put in place. An individual person can only be:

the presenting author: three times
a discussant for a symposium: one time
a chair of a symposium: one time
a co-author of any presentation format: four times

Each researchers is allowed to submit up to eight proposals. Co-authors may submit proposals with a different person as presenting author.

The submission system

Submission must be done through the submission system for which a user name and password are needed. Thus, users who have not yet used a service of EARLI need to first create an account. For more information on the necessary submission steps within the system, consult the official conference page.

Registration

Registering for the conference will be available from early 2026 and is dynamic in its price range according to two deadlines. The early bird prices will be available until 30 April 2026. Standard registration will then commence from 1 May 2026. There are three price categories:

EARLI members
JURE members/PhD students
non-members

Included in the registration fee are: coffee and lunch breaks, the welcome reception, a gift from the organisers, and the cultural outing.

More information

For more details on: submissions, important dates, financial support, program, venue, organising committees, and the writing research school, visit the official page of the conference.