Call for Abstracts
The Call for Abstracts for ESEE2026 is now open! (Extended) Abstracts can be submitted until December 19th (23:59).
Please have a close look at the final conference programme before submitting, as you will be asked to indicate to which subtrack(s) you aim to add with your contribution. Note also that each ESEE2026 participant may present only one paper at the conference.
Next, we kindly invite all submitting authors to help out in the evaluation of abstracts. If you accept, you will be asked to score 1-3 abstracts (depending on the number of submissions) using a rubric based on the evaluation criteria listed in the Call.
Finally, we want to highlight the Best Student Prizes that the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE) awards to (PhD) students or recent PhD graduates that excel through their contributions to the conference. More details on these Prizes can be found in the Call, and include, amongst others, the submission of a full paper in May 2026.
The full Call for Abstracts can be found here.
Submissions are possible via ConfTool at
https://www.conftool.pro/esee2026ghent/
Conference Programme
The ESEE2026 conference programme was prepared in September by the Local Organizing Committee and the Scientific Committee, and complemented with Open Special Subtracks proposed by conference participants. The final programme consists of 11 main tracks, 56 subtracks and 11 Open Special Subtracks (OSS) that were retained through the previous Call for Open and Closed Subtracks.
The main tracks include:
- Beyond GDP: Rethinking Well-being and Prosperity
- Ecological Boundaries, Biophysical Realities and the Commons
- Justice, Equity, and Inclusive Futures
- Socio-Ecological Transformation in Times of Crisis
- Technology, Work and Care
- Institutional Innovation and Governance
- Ecological Macroeconomics, Public Finance, and Money
- Sufficiency, Values, and Behavioral Change
- Reimagining Places and the Urban-Rural Divide
- Rethinking Business and Finance
- Developments in Ecological Economics as a Scientific Field
The full programme – including a list of all subtracks and a description of each of the Open Special Subtracks (OSS) – can be found here.
Call for Special Subtracks / Special Sessions (closed)
The Call for Special Subtracks / Special Sessions is out now and will be open until October 28th (23:59).
Two distinct formats are provided within the ESEE2026 conference:
- Open Special Subtrack: here one proposes to add a Subtrack to the ESEE2026 programme that is centered around a specific topic within ecological economics that does not fit clearly within any of the (sub)tracks proposed by the conference organizers – see appendix A below for a full overview of the ESEE programme, or check out this link. If approved, the Subtrack is added to the final programme of the conference and will be open to all conference participants who can submit their work to the Subtrack. A Subtrack will afterwards translate into one or more sessions – in the traditional format of a series of presentations – depending on the interest of conference participants.
- Closed Special Session: here you propose a Session organized around a specific topic related to ecological economics, for which the organizers wish to deviate from the traditional format of sessions at the ESEE2026 conference – i.e. the organizers want to have a session that is not a series of presentations of participants, but, for instance, a roundtable or interactive discussion. These Special Sessions are closed in the sense that only pre-approved scholars will be allowed to present (including the Session proposers themselves). The Scientific Committee will only accept a limited number of Closed Special Sessions.
The Call for Special Subtracks / Sessions can be found here for reference.