24th International Conference on Sustainable Development 2026
October 21, 2026
Event Location
University of Melbourne
Melbourne Business School
200 Leicester Street,
Carlton, Victoria,
Australia.
24th International Conference on Sustainable Development 2026
is jointly presented by
International Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Law (ICIRL),
Centre for Research in Social Justice and Policy (CRSJP) at Laurentian University, Canada;
Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA), Canada;
Important Dates
Last Day to submit Abstract / Paper / Presentation - October 02, 2026
Last date to register - October 10, 2026
Note:
Abstracts/Papers, acceptances issued on a rolling basis until October 07, 2026.
Please submit your Abstract/Paper as early as possible
Major Themes
The International Conference on Sustainable Development consists of following themes.
1. Development, 2. Economics, 3. Environment and Natural Resources, 4. Food and Agriculture, 5. Governance,
6. Health, 7. Information and communication, 8. Science and technology, 9. Social policy. 10. Gender equality
Last Day to submit Abstract / Paper / Presentation - October 02, 2026
Last date to register - October 10, 2026
Note:
Abstracts/Papers, acceptances issued on a rolling basis until October 07, 2026.
Please submit your Abstract/Paper as early as possible
Major Themes
The International Conference on Sustainable Development consists of following themes.
1. Development, 2. Economics, 3. Environment and Natural Resources, 4. Food and Agriculture, 5. Governance,
6. Health, 7. Information and communication, 8. Science and technology, 9. Social policy. 10. Gender equality
Introduction
Call for Papers
Registration
Accepted Papers
FAQs
Program
Visa, Official Invitation, Cancellation and Refund
Travel and Accommodation
Conference Contacts
Detailed Program
Program at a glance
October 21, 2026
8:30 AM Registration Begins
9:30 PM Opening Plenary Session
10:00 AM Tea/Cofee Break
10:30 AM Sessions
12:30 PM Lunch
2:00 PM Sessions (Include Health/Coffee/Tea Break
05:00 PM - End
Conference Co-chair
Dr. Henri Pallard, LL.B., Ph.D.
Canada.
Emeritus Professor Law and Justice
Director, International Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Law
Laurentian University, Canada.
Dr. Henri Pallard is the Director of the International Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Law and Professor emeritus in
the Department of Law and Justice, Laurentian University, Sudbury (Ontario), Canada. He is broadly interested in the
relationship between culture and human rights as it manifests itself in both western and non western cultures. From 1994 to
2005, he was the Director of Persons, Culture and Rights (Personne, culture et droits), an international North/South research
team which was funded by the International Francophone University (Agence universitaire de la Francophonie). During this
period, he worked closely with researchers and academics from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt distilling the cultural issues
underlying the interpretation and implementation of human rights, the rule of law and democracy in North Africa.
From 2010 to 2016, he was the Associate Director, Poverty, Homelessness and Migration, at Laurentian University, which
received a $1 million grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Working in
partnership with First Nations and northern communities, this five-year project examined the underlying causes of poverty,
poor housing, homelessness, and out-migration in northern Ontario. For its outstanding work under its Director of SSHRC, it
received the SSRHC Impact Partnership Award.
In 2003, Dr. Henri Pallard was invited to present the Vice-President’s Lecture. In 2008, he was awarded the Laurentian
University Research Excellence Award in recognition of his work internationally which contributed significantly to the
reputation and prestige of the university. In 2010 he was the recipient of the 2010 Saint-Jean Award of Merit for Distinguished
Alumni. This award is the most prestigious honour that the Saint-Jean Campus, University of Alberta, bestows upon one
alumnus each year in recognition for demonstrating leadership in her/his profession. In 2022, he received the Order of Merit
of the AJEFO (Franco-Ontarian Association of Jurists) for his contribution to Francophone access to justice.
Dr. Pallard received his PhD in philosophy of law from the University of Nice (France), summa cum laude. He held a doctoral
scholarship from the France-Canada cultural exchange programme (1976-1981). He then obtained his law degree (J.D.)
from McGill University (1984). He is also a member of the Ontario Bar. In 1992-1993, he held a postdoctoral fellowship from
the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie and was a research fellow at the Université de Paris II, France. He has been a
visiting professor at the Faculté des Sciences Juridiques, Politiques et Sociales de Tunis, Tunisia (1997), Université Cadi
Ayyad, Marrakech, Maroc (1998 and 2010), Ain Chams University, Cairo, Egypte (2000), South West University of Science
and Technology (2002), Mianyang, China, Université Grenoble Alpes, France (2005), Institut franco-chinois, Renmin
University of China (2017), British University in Egypt (2019-2022).
He has published five books, edited ten others and published more than 75 articles and chapters in international journals and
books. He has also given more than 150 scholarly presentations.
Special Session (TBA)
Session Leader
Paul A. Barresi, J.D., M.A.L.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science and Environmental Law, SNHU
Adjunct Professor of Law (& Fulbright Lecturer in Law, Spring 2016),
Sun Yat-sen University School of Law, Guangzhou, People Republic of China.
Co-Chair, Department of Social Sciences, SNHU
Coordinator, Politics and Global Affairs Program, SNHU
Campus Pre-Law Advisor, SNHU
School of Arts, Sciences, and Education
Southern New Hampshire University (SMHU)
2500 North River Road
Manchester, NH 03106
USA.
Panelists
Dr. Michael A. Reiter, Ph.D.
Professor, Director, and Chair
Department of Integrated Environmental Science
Bethune-Cookman Universty
Daytona Beach, FL,
USA.
Dr. Rick Smardon, Ph.D.
Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
Department of Environmental Studies
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Syracuse, New York,
USA.
Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Roundtable, which produced a plan to rearrange and to expand
into following areas.
(1) The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Approach to Sustainability Education and Practice:
Foundational Thematic Principles;
(2) The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Approach to Sustainability Education and Practice: The
Administrative Challenge;
(3) The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Approach to Sustainability Education and Practice: The
Pedagogical Challenge;
(4) The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Approach to Sustainability Education and Practice:
Program Evaluation and Transformation; and
(5) The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Approach to Sustainability Education and Practice: From
the Classroom to the Workplace..
This set of five papers lends itself to being presented in a workshop format in which participants would end up evaluating the
consistency of their own programs or courses with the SHES approach and identifying steps that could be taken to align
them more closely with it. If there were representatives of professional associations present, then they could do the same
with their standards of practice or codes of ethics.
The SHES approach is the work of the SHES Roundtable. Since 2009, the SHES Roundtable has been a collaborative
forum for college and university faculty and administrators, practitioners, and others from throughout North America and
beyond to pursue their commitment to providing students in institutions of higher education with the knowledge and skills
needed by practitioners and citizens alike to meet the existential sustainability challenges that plague the modern world. The
result has been the SHES approach to sustainability education and practice, a living set of recommendations about the
pedagogy and administration of interdisciplinary and higher-order, sustainability-focused programs in higher education and
their implications for sustainability practice. The SHES approach is a holistic one that embraces the education not only of
students per se but also of practitioners, stakeholders, and citizens as a prerequisite for success in building a world of
sustainable societies.
The Roundtable's edited book, Education for Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems: From Theory to Practice
(Routledge, 2019), is the most comprehensive summary of our first decade of work. Our subsequent article in the OIDA
International Journal of Sustainable Development, "The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems Approach to
Sustainability Education and Practice: Foundational Principles, Pedagogical Strategies, and Administrative Considerations"
(2022), which Dr. Paul Barresi presented at the OIDA conference in Bangkok, updates and expands upon the key elements
of the SHES approach.
What Dr. Paul Barresi and his team will be presenting at the special session in Sri Lanka updates and expands upon the
content of that paper (as five papers) to reflect the outcomes of the 18th Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems
Roundtable, held in Daytona Beach, Florida, in October 2024.
First Sub Session
First Sub-session: The first sub-session of the workshop will be a presentation of the SHES approach, organized as a
sequence of five paper presentations, each of which will include its own question-and-answer session. Those presentations
will be on the following topics, presented by the following presenters:
(1) Foundational Thematic Principles--Presented by Mike Reiter (online) and Paul Barresi (onsite)
(2) The Administrative Challenge--Presented by Mike Reiter (online)
(3) The Pedagogical Challenge--Presented by Paul Barresi (onsite)
(4) From the Classroom to the Workplace--Presented by Rick Smardon (online)
Second Sub-session:
(5) Program Evaluation and Transformation--Presented by Paul Barresi (onsite) and Mike Reiter (online)
Workshop/discussion
The fifth paper is about applying the SHES approach to the standards of practice and codes of ethics of relevant professional
associations.
The second sub-session will start with a brief recapitulation of the highlights of presentation 4 from the first sub-session,
including a question-and-answer period, that will focus more precisely on how to use the tools introduced in presentation 4 to
evaluate and to transform courses and programs along the holistic lines recommended by the SHES approach. Then the
participants will break up into singles and groups for however long you want to allocate for the workshop part of the sub-
session, during which they will use the program evaluation and transformation tools from presentation 4 of the first sub-
session to evaluate their own programs and courses at their own universities in the light of the SHES approach and to
envision plans for transforming those programs and courses along the holistic lines recommended by the SHES approach
itself. As an alternative, interested participants may do the same things with the professional standards of practice or codes
of ethics of their own professional associations.
As the on-site presenter, Dr. Barresi will circulate among the singles and groups to answer questions, to offer guidance and
feedback in real time, and the like. In the more intensive version of the workshop, all participants would reconvene as a
group after a short break to present and to discuss the results of their work with me and the other workshop participants.
If you require more information, please contact our office.
Conference Secretariat
Ontario International Development Agency
2581 River Mist Road
Ottawa,
Ontario, K2J 6G1
Canada.
Tel: + 1 613 612 7615
e-mail: oida@ontariointernational.org
website: www.ontariointernational.org
Conference Co-chair
Dr. Henri Pallard, LL.B., Ph.D.
Canada.
Emeritus Professor Law and Justice
Director, International Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Law
Laurentian University, Canada.
Dr. Henri Pallard is the Director of the International Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Law and Professor emeritus in
the Department of Law and Justice, Laurentian University, Sudbury (Ontario), Canada. He is broadly interested in the
relationship between culture and human rights as it manifests itself in both western and non western cultures. From 1994 to
2005, he was the Director of Persons, Culture and Rights (Personne, culture et droits), an international North/South research
team which was funded by the International Francophone University (Agence universitaire de la Francophonie). During this
period, he worked closely with researchers and academics from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt distilling the cultural issues
underlying the interpretation and implementation of human rights, the rule of law and democracy in North Africa.
From 2010 to 2016, he was the Associate Director, Poverty, Homelessness and Migration, at Laurentian University, which
received a $1 million grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Working in
partnership with First Nations and northern communities, this five-year project examined the underlying causes of poverty,
poor housing, homelessness, and out-migration in northern Ontario. For its outstanding work under its Director of SSHRC, it
received the SSRHC Impact Partnership Award.
In 2003, Dr. Henri Pallard was invited to present the Vice-President’s Lecture. In 2008, he was awarded the Laurentian
University Research Excellence Award in recognition of his work internationally which contributed significantly to the
reputation and prestige of the university. In 2010 he was the recipient of the 2010 Saint-Jean Award of Merit for Distinguished
Alumni. This award is the most prestigious honour that the Saint-Jean Campus, University of Alberta, bestows upon one
alumnus each year in recognition for demonstrating leadership in her/his profession. In 2022, he received the Order of Merit
of the AJEFO (Franco-Ontarian Association of Jurists) for his contribution to Francophone access to justice.
Dr. Pallard received his PhD in philosophy of law from the University of Nice (France), summa cum laude. He held a doctoral
scholarship from the France-Canada cultural exchange programme (1976-1981). He then obtained his law degree (J.D.)
from McGill University (1984). He is also a member of the Ontario Bar. In 1992-1993, he held a postdoctoral fellowship from
the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie and was a research fellow at the Université de Paris II, France. He has been a
visiting professor at the Faculté des Sciences Juridiques, Politiques et Sociales de Tunis, Tunisia (1997), Université Cadi
Ayyad, Marrakech, Maroc (1998 and 2010), Ain Chams University, Cairo, Egypte (2000), South West University of Science
and Technology (2002), Mianyang, China, Université Grenoble Alpes, France (2005), Institut franco-chinois, Renmin
University of China (2017), British University in Egypt (2019-2022).
He has published five books, edited ten others and published more than 75 articles and chapters in international journals and
books. He has also given more than 150 scholarly presentations.
Special Session (TBA)
Session Leader
Paul A. Barresi, J.D., M.A.L.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science and Environmental Law, SNHU
Adjunct Professor of Law (& Fulbright Lecturer in Law, Spring 2016),
Sun Yat-sen University School of Law, Guangzhou, People Republic of China.
Co-Chair, Department of Social Sciences, SNHU
Coordinator, Politics and Global Affairs Program, SNHU
Campus Pre-Law Advisor, SNHU
School of Arts, Sciences, and Education
Southern New Hampshire University (SMHU)
2500 North River Road
Manchester, NH 03106
USA.
Panelists
Dr. Michael A. Reiter, Ph.D.
Professor, Director, and Chair
Department of Integrated Environmental Science
Bethune-Cookman Universty
Daytona Beach, FL,
USA.
Dr. Rick Smardon, Ph.D.
Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
Department of Environmental Studies
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Syracuse, New York,
USA.
Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Roundtable, which produced a plan to rearrange and to expand
into following areas.
(1) The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Approach to Sustainability Education and Practice:
Foundational Thematic Principles;
(2) The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Approach to Sustainability Education and Practice: The
Administrative Challenge;
(3) The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Approach to Sustainability Education and Practice: The
Pedagogical Challenge;
(4) The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Approach to Sustainability Education and Practice:
Program Evaluation and Transformation; and
(5) The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) Approach to Sustainability Education and Practice: From
the Classroom to the Workplace..
This set of five papers lends itself to being presented in a workshop format in which participants would end up evaluating the
consistency of their own programs or courses with the SHES approach and identifying steps that could be taken to align
them more closely with it. If there were representatives of professional associations present, then they could do the same
with their standards of practice or codes of ethics.
The SHES approach is the work of the SHES Roundtable. Since 2009, the SHES Roundtable has been a collaborative
forum for college and university faculty and administrators, practitioners, and others from throughout North America and
beyond to pursue their commitment to providing students in institutions of higher education with the knowledge and skills
needed by practitioners and citizens alike to meet the existential sustainability challenges that plague the modern world. The
result has been the SHES approach to sustainability education and practice, a living set of recommendations about the
pedagogy and administration of interdisciplinary and higher-order, sustainability-focused programs in higher education and
their implications for sustainability practice. The SHES approach is a holistic one that embraces the education not only of
students per se but also of practitioners, stakeholders, and citizens as a prerequisite for success in building a world of
sustainable societies.
The Roundtable's edited book, Education for Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems: From Theory to Practice
(Routledge, 2019), is the most comprehensive summary of our first decade of work. Our subsequent article in the OIDA
International Journal of Sustainable Development, "The Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems Approach to
Sustainability Education and Practice: Foundational Principles, Pedagogical Strategies, and Administrative Considerations"
(2022), which Dr. Paul Barresi presented at the OIDA conference in Bangkok, updates and expands upon the key elements
of the SHES approach.
What Dr. Paul Barresi and his team will be presenting at the special session in Sri Lanka updates and expands upon the
content of that paper (as five papers) to reflect the outcomes of the 18th Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems
Roundtable, held in Daytona Beach, Florida, in October 2024.
First Sub Session
First Sub-session: The first sub-session of the workshop will be a presentation of the SHES approach, organized as a
sequence of five paper presentations, each of which will include its own question-and-answer session. Those presentations
will be on the following topics, presented by the following presenters:
(1) Foundational Thematic Principles--Presented by Mike Reiter (online) and Paul Barresi (onsite)
(2) The Administrative Challenge--Presented by Mike Reiter (online)
(3) The Pedagogical Challenge--Presented by Paul Barresi (onsite)
(4) From the Classroom to the Workplace--Presented by Rick Smardon (online)
Second Sub-session:
(5) Program Evaluation and Transformation--Presented by Paul Barresi (onsite) and Mike Reiter (online)
Workshop/discussion
The fifth paper is about applying the SHES approach to the standards of practice and codes of ethics of relevant professional
associations.
The second sub-session will start with a brief recapitulation of the highlights of presentation 4 from the first sub-session,
including a question-and-answer period, that will focus more precisely on how to use the tools introduced in presentation 4 to
evaluate and to transform courses and programs along the holistic lines recommended by the SHES approach. Then the
participants will break up into singles and groups for however long you want to allocate for the workshop part of the sub-
session, during which they will use the program evaluation and transformation tools from presentation 4 of the first sub-
session to evaluate their own programs and courses at their own universities in the light of the SHES approach and to
envision plans for transforming those programs and courses along the holistic lines recommended by the SHES approach
itself. As an alternative, interested participants may do the same things with the professional standards of practice or codes
of ethics of their own professional associations.
As the on-site presenter, Dr. Barresi will circulate among the singles and groups to answer questions, to offer guidance and
feedback in real time, and the like. In the more intensive version of the workshop, all participants would reconvene as a
group after a short break to present and to discuss the results of their work with me and the other workshop participants.
If you require more information, please contact our office.
Conference Secretariat
Ontario International Development Agency
2581 River Mist Road
Ottawa,
Ontario, K2J 6G1
Canada.
Tel: + 1 613 612 7615
e-mail: oida@ontariointernational.org
website: www.ontariointernational.org
Program
