The Third International Rubiaceae Conference was held at KU Leuven in Leuven, Belgium on 18–21 September 2006. It was co-organised by KU Leuven and the National Botanic Garden of Belgium, and involved Erik Smets, Elmar Robbrecht, Steven Dessein, and Petra De Block. 

A decade elapsed between the second conference in 1995 and a half-day symposium on Rubiaceae organised during the XVII International Botanical Congress in Vienna in 2005. That symposium highlighted the growing interest in the family and the need for a more extensive meeting.

The conference aimed to provide a platform to Rubiaceae and Gentianales researchers to present their findings from the decade following the second conference and to facilitate discussions and networking opportunities. Six themes were scheduled for the conference, including systematics at the family, subfamily, and tribal levels, biogeography of Rubiaceae, studies of other members of the Gentianales and the order as a whole, studies of specific genera, and Rubiaceae checklists. Additionally, two keynote lectures exploring distinct but interconnected topics were presented. The program and abstracts of the conference were published in 2006 in Scripta Botanica Belgica 40: 1–92, while selected proceedings were published in 2009 in Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 96(1): 1–214. 

File: Program and abstracts