CALL FOR PAPERS to be presented at the 2025 IRAS Conference June 28-July 5, 2026: Star Island, NH

The ways we perceive our relationships to our environment, which are both deeply personal and profoundly cultural, determine our responses to it. This conference will provide participants with opportunities to examine how our most ingrained personal beliefs influence our shared reality and future. Individually and collaboratively, our challenge is to acknowledge our co-existing powers of destruction and creation, and to reframe our understanding of our environment in ways that favor life-affirming choices, rather than dysfunction or destruction, in decisions large and small.
The 2026 IRAS Conference encourages professionals across disciplines to submit proposals for papers, presentations, or workshops related to this theme. Potential topic areas and questions might include:
  • Human learning and belief formation, and their influence on social behaviors in personal and societal contexts: How are our beliefs formed, reinforced, and transformed? How do cognitive biases, heuristics, and other factors influence decision making?
  • Futurist perspectives and/or collaborative engagement with futurist methodologies
  • Perspectives and practices from spiritual and religious traditions that offer frameworks to engage with, challenge, and embrace or change our deeply held understandings and responses
  • What are the critical psychological, cultural, social, and political processes that impede or support our ability to make choices that enable planetary, community, and personal thriving?
We welcome interdisciplinary submissions with perspectives from fields including but not limited to cognitive science, neurobiology, philosophy, ethics, epistemology, organizational behavior, environmental studies, anthropology, sociology, religious and spiritual studies, political science, information technology and AI, educational tools and methods, and the impact of storytelling, media, and cultural narratives. Filmmakers and other artists are encouraged to answer the Call for Papers with descriptions of presentations and/or workshops.
Submissions
  • Submit an abstract or workshop description of up to 500 words to with “IRAS 2026 Proposal” in the subject line, by March 1st, 2026.
  • Include 3-5 keywords to help with the review process.
  • For papers, include the research question, key findings, and implications
  • For workshops, include the description, format, and any other pertinent information
  • Abstracts must not include identifying information. Please send a separate cover letter with author details.
  • On April 1st, 2026, the peer reviewer decisions will be communicated to all who submitted proposals. 
Proposals will be peer reviewed, with a limited number accepted. The top two selections will be awarded Shapley-Booth Scholarships that cover conference registration and room/board. Authors may later submit their papers to Zygon for full text peer-review and potential publication.  
For general questions about the call for papers/workshops, contact Jennifer Whitten: [email protected]
 

    Submit an Abstract