Conferences

The Social Policy Association (SPA) holds an international academic conference each summer. This is a key time for the UK and international social policy community to share current research. The conference regularly attracts several hundred delegates who are researchers, teachers, students and practitioners of social policy from the UK and overseas. We come together to share research, promote social policy in teaching and learning, and to advance the role of research in policy making, practice and wider public debates.

2026 Annual Conference

The 2026 Social Policy Association annual conference will take place from Wednesday 1st to Friday 3rd July at Liverpool Hope University.

The 2026 conference theme, Hope in Dark Times: Resistance and Radical Change, will critically engage with the social, political, and economic challenges of our time, foregrounding innovative and transformative approaches to social policy.

The conference will take place at the Creative Campus of Liverpool Hope University, fostering rigorous debate, interdisciplinary dialogue, and collaborative inquiry. This event seeks to create a unique space in which scholars, practitioners, and activists can interrogate structures of inequality, articulate visions of justice, and consider pathways toward sustainable systemic change.

We warmly invite you to join us in examining how hope, resistance, and radical transformation might reframe possibilities for a more equitable future.

Registration information and the call for abstracts will be launched in due course. In the meantime, watch our promotional video below!