The ICRN 2026 Summit begins tomorrow in Karlsruhe, Germany! We are so excited to welcome attendees from across the network for an incredible programme of keynote talks, research presentations, and collaborative sessions.
If you’re joining us, here’s a reminder to:
✔️ Tag us in your posts ✔️ Use #ICRN2026 so we can find and share your updates ✔️ Send your photos directly to us and we’ll post them on our new social media channels!
We’re counting down the days until the summit begins in Karlsruhe, Germany for what promises to be an inspiring few days of talks, collaboration, and connection.
Whether you’re presenting or attending we can’t wait to see you all there.
If you’re sharing photos remember to either tag us and use the official hashtag #ICRN2026 or send your photos directly to us so we can share them on our new social media channels!
We are pleased to announce that the International Contact Research Network (ICRN) is now present on LinkedIn and Bluesky. We encourage members, both longstanding and new, to follow us via the links below to stay informed, alongside our existing YouTube channel:
LinkedIn
Bluesky
YouTube
We look forward to sharing information with the network through these channels.
The ICRN Summit will take place from 5–7 July 2026 at the FernUniversität Campus Centre in Karlsruhe, Germany, in a hybrid format, as a post-conference meeting of the EASP General Meeting.
The core ICRN programme will run from Sunday afternoon, 2.30 pm, to Monday afternoon, 4.00 pm, with online participation options available for most sessions.
To coincide with this year’s ICRN summit 5-7 July 2026, we are launching a competition to design a new logo for our rapidly growing research group. If you have a keen eye for design or background in this area, we’d be thrilled to receive your ideas.
Brief: A colour visual that represents the ICRN values and mission (see below).
Join us for our next ICRN Colloquium featuring Prof Rose Meleady from the University of East Anglia who will present Stable People, Stable Contexts, Stable Attitudes? Contact Effects Reconsidered. Abstract: Intergroup contact is widely assumed to reduce prejudice by changing individuals over time. Yet recent research has raised questions about whether routine, everyday contact actually produces meaningful change within individuals.
Dear ICRN members and friends, As the current chair of the ‘International Contact Research Network’ and on behalf of its executive, I write to make you aware and praise the publishing by Bloomberg’s Katherine Griffiths of a compelling, detailed, evidence-based, cross-validated, multi-source account of endemic and protracted sexual harassment and power exploitation of students and young colleagues by well-known Miles Hewstone and several other male professors at Oxford University.
Join us for our next ICRN Colloquium featuring Dr. Negusu Aklilu, who will present Building peace before the polls: Political party dialogues to prevent electoral violence in Ethiopia.
Abstract: I would like to showcase a closed pre-election political dialogue we conducted in 2021, informed by intergroup contact theory and associated methodologies to address political concerns and associated emotional phenomena.
We’re excited to share an upcoming event from the Living Library in the Netherlands. On December 11, they will host an online Living Library session, followed by a symposium discussing new findings on the impact of the Living Library on both disadvantaged and advantaged groups, presented by Afreen, Julia and Fani.
We’re thrilled to announce that ICRN and the Hamburg EASP-sponsored meeting group on Advances in Intergroup Contact will be joining forces to host a joint satellite meeting on and for intergroup contact!
This meeting will take place right after the EASP General Meeting (July 2026) — making it easy to attend both events.