Wednesday 19 - Friday 21 August 2026

The Centre for Postgraduate Studies invites you to participate in the highlight of the postgraduate calendar at Eden Grove Complex, Rhodes University, and to share your research with a wide and diverse audience. 

Global Instabilities and the Role of Institutions of Higher Learning: Backwards,

Forward and the Intersectionality.

19 - 21 August 2026.

You are invited to participate in the highlight of the postgraduate calendar and share your research with a wide audience

This conference is a collaboration between the Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Postgraduate Liaison Committee and Post-Doctoral Forum at

Rhodes University.

Rhodes University will host an interfaculty conference from 19 to 21 August 2026 under the theme “Global Instabilities and the Role of Institutions of Higher Learning: Backwards, Forward and the Intersectionality.” The conference intends to provide a scholarly platform for rigorous reflection on the varied forms of instability shaping contemporary societies and on the responsibilities, possibilities and limitations of institutions of higher learning in responding to these conditions through teaching and learning, research, community engagement, and institutional practices. While Rhodes University will serve as the host institution, participation will also be invited from other universities across the Eastern Cape.

This concept note is an invitation for contributions from all six faculties of Rhodes University as well as from other universities in the Eastern Cape and seeks to promote an intellectually inclusive conversation on how institutions of higher education interpret, confront and shape responses to global instabilities. The theme encourages engagement with historical trajectories and inheritances “backwards”, future-oriented thinking and possibility “forward” as well as the intersecting social, political, economic, environmental, legal, cultural, educational, scientific and health-related dimensions of contemporary instability. The conference therefore welcomes disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary contributions, recognising that the complexity of present global challenges requires dialogue across different fields of knowledge and practices.

Join us for three days of intellectual engagement and social networking. 

To submit your abstract, please click here

Important Dates:

 22 May 2026 - Submissions of abstracts opens

22 June 2026 - Submissions of abstracts closes

10 June 2026: Information Workshop 

13 July 2026 - Notice of Acceptances

            19-21 August 2026 - Conference.