5th Language Policy Forum, 2026

22-23 April

Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

'benefits and challenges of Language policy in the 21st Century'

With thanks for the generous sponsorship of the Instituto de Lenguas Modernas y Traducción and the Department of Romance, French and Italian Studies and Translation Studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid; and the Journal Language Problems & Language Planning (John Benjamins Publishing)

Conference theme

Our theme 'benefits and challenges of Language policy in the 21st Century' emerges from deep roots within the field of language policy, and falls at two important anniversaries.

2026 marks 50 years since Joshua Fishman's foundational volume Bilingual Education: An International Sociological Perspective (1976), a cornerstone in establishing language policy as a distinct discipline. 2026 also marks 20 years since the publication of An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, a collection edited by Thomas Ricento and showcasing the leading lights of what had become by then a flourishing research field.

In his volume, Fishman argued that language policy (or more specifically bilingual education) was good for majorities, minorities, language learning, and education. In this spirit, LPF 2026 is informed by this disciplinary heritage, and topics beyond it, to examine language policy across different areas of civic and societal engagement.

The Language Policy Forum is international, affordable, and accessible -- a premier international meeting of specialists with extra attention to facilitating access.

The call deadline has now passed; this page is for delegates, and those wishing to follow the progress of the conference. Non-presenting attendees are welcome to register below.

Programme, Communications, conduct

The programme is available here, and will be updated regularly. We invite delegates to install the Google Sheets app, and keep it open during the conference for any changes.

During the conference we will use the Signal app for live communication among delegates. Signal is a secure alternative to WhatsApp recommended by a number of European universities because of concerns over privacy (example here); there are related legal claims over WhatsApp’s privacy features. To download Signal, visit https://signal.org. Please do this before the conference, ready to join the chat group.

Our standard code of conduct applies to all our events.

Plenary speakers

Lily Chimuanya, Covenant University, Nigeria

'Bilingual Education as a Tool for Inclusion: Lessons from Nigeria's Language Landscape'

Andrew Shorten, University of Limerick, Ireland

'Mediating Multilingual Democracy: A Problem-Based Approach'

Guest of honour

Xavier Vila Moreno, Conseller de Política Lingüística, Generalitat de Catalunya (Minister of Language Policy, Government of Catalonia)

The Minister will address the conference to introduce key aspects of contemporary language policy, and will join other networking opportunities within the conference.

ADVICE PANEL

A panel of senior experts will each briefly share some advice, followed by open floor discussion.

Echoing the conference theme, this year's advice panel is titled: Achieving impact and public engagement which is 'good for majorities, minorities, language learning, and education'.

Prof. Dr. Tomasz Wicherkiewicz, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland

Prof. Emma Dafouz, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

Lane Greene, Senior Digital Editor, The Economist

Fees, REGISTRATION

To register, visit https://pretix.eu/2026-LPF/madrid2026/

The list of fees (for both presenters and non-presenting attendees) is as follows:

Employed full-time, BAAL* member: £90
Employed full-time, BAAL* non-member: £105
Student / doctoral researcher with conference funding, BAAL member: £45
Student / doctoral researcher with conference funding, BAAL non-member: £55
Retired / between jobs / student without scholarship: £20

*BAAL, the British Association of Applied Linguistics, is the parent organisation of our research group. See our constitution for more details.

We use and recommend Pretix for registration, a secure open-source European service.

Map of key locations

For travel and accommodation advice, see this page.

Organising committee

The elected Executive Committee will manage the evaluation of abstracts and the running of the conference. This includes co-opted member Javier Moreno-Rivero, based at the host university, who joins the committee for 2025-26 (per our constitution).

Google Sites

Report abuse