The International Place Branding Association invites research papers, doctoral colloquium presentations, panel proposals, practitioner case-studies and artwork for its tenth anniversary conference, which will take place in Lisbon between Wednesday 28th and Friday 30th of October 2026.

The conference builds on the collective success of IPBA’s previous conferences (London 2016, Swansea 2017, Macao 2018, Volos 2019, Barcelona 2021, Aix-en-Provence 2022, Helsingborg 2023, Bangkok 2024, Manchester 2025) and the earlier International Colloquia on Place Brand Management (London and Aosta), the International Conference on Destination Branding and Marketing series (IFT Macao, University of South Carolina, and Swansea), the City Branding Symposia (Stockholm and Beijing), the Corfu Symposia on Managing & Marketing Places, and the Poznan Best Place Summit.

AIMS AND THEME OF THE CONFERENCE

The conference is the main vehicle to advance the aims of the International Place Branding Association, which include providing a forum for the exchange of ideas around the theory and practice of place branding, linking the members of the international place branding community, bringing scholars and practitioners closer together and advancing the professionalisation of the field. 

Building on the momentum of the 2025 IPBA conference, the 2026 anniversary IPBA conference endeavours to bring together scholars, practitioners and students of place branding and related fields (nation branding, public diplomacy, city branding, country branding, destination branding) working at the intersection of marketing, tourism, economic development, public diplomacy, events organisation, heritage management, spatial design, public administration, political science,  human geography, architecture,  communications, and related fields.

The 10th anniversary IPBA conference in Lisbon offers a timely moment to reflect on the field’s evolution and its growing global adoption. It will spotlight place branding as an inherently interdisciplinary practice capable of catalysing positive change across sectors and communities. By bringing diverse perspectives together, the conference seeks to advance both understanding and theory in place branding.

Special opportunities for networking will be offered.

We also invite doctoral candidates to submit presentations to the Doctoral Colloquium.  

Finally, we invite submissions to the 2026 edition of the IPBA Art Gallery, a special feature of the IPBA conference that presents place branding-inspired artistic and innovative work by scholars, researchers, artists and students converging artistic, creative and scientific methods and means of presentation. 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Please read and follow these instructions carefully. Failure to do so may result in immediate desk rejection by the programme committee. All contributions (research paper abstracts, doctoral presentation abstracts, panel proposals, cases, full papers and artwork descriptions) should be submitted via EasyChair https://easychair.org/conferences?conf=ipba2026. Submissions must not contain any identifying information. Please remove any mention of author names from the actual submission. Specific guidelines for some types of submissions are given in the endnotes .

The deadline for all submissions is 5 May 2026. Please note that the two-stage process that we used in the past (feedback to abstract first, then submit full paper) has been abandoned. There is only ONE submission deadline, which is 5 May 2026.

Authors who do not intend to submit a full paper to the conference at all can submit their abstract by 5 May 2026, but they will not be allowed to submit full papers afterwards. Authors who wish their papers to be considered for publication or for the Best Paper award must submit full papers by 5 May. A double-blind review process will be applied to all submissions. Revised and final versions of abstracts, cases, full papers or artworks should be uploaded to EasyChair by 30 August 2026. 

Please ensure that you consider the following general guidelines when preparing your submission.

During the submission process, authors will be asked to indicate whether their submission is a) an original research contribution; b) a practitioner case study contribution; c) a doctoral colloquium contribution; d) a panel proposal or e) an artistic contribution.

At least one author of accepted submissions must register to present by 15 September. Abstracts, cases, full papers, panels or artworks submitted, but not registered after this date, will not be published in the conference proceedings nor included in the final programme. Delegates at the main conference will only be programmed for a maximum of two presentations. PhD students can participate in the doctoral colloquium as well as present another paper at the main conference. Queries are welcome and can be directed to: info@ipba2026lisbon.org 

LIST OF TOPICS

The conference intends to be inclusive of good quality papers and presentations that cover a wide range of topics. This year we particularly welcome contributions that:

• Advance and enrich the theoretical and practical understanding of place branding.
• Explore the symbiotic relationship between place branding and other disciplinary realms.
• Advance the clarification of major concepts (e.g., place marketing vs. place branding vs. place promotion vs. diplomacy).
• Explore and analyse the differences between major application fields (e.g., tourism vs. resident attachment vs. investment attraction) and/or major place scales (cities vs. regions vs. nations) as well as cross-border areas.
• Focus on the role and potential of place branding for sustainable development.
• Examine the overlaps between place branding and public diplomacy as well as the intersection between crisis communication and place branding.
• Develop an agenda for engaged scholarship in place branding.
• Critically examine the use and potential of digital technologies and social and mainstream media in place branding.
• Examine the role of culture, creativity and innovation in place branding strategies.
• Analyse the significance of stakeholder engagement for effective place branding and methods to facilitate it.
• Use multiple, comparative case studies that reflect on cross-case conclusions.
• Focus on branding and marketing local food and culture, geographical indications, gastronomy in destination branding, culinary and cultural diplomacy.
• Explore country of origin effects, soft power and place branding, branding for talent attraction and investment promotion.
• Examine the roles and practices of Destination Management and Marketing Organisations in accordance and/or conflict with place branding strategies.
• Focus on practitioners’ learnings (from policy makers or consultants) based on cases or applied research.

PARTICIPATION IN THE DOCTORAL COLLOQUIUM

PhD students are invited to submit an abstract of the presentation that they intend to deliver during the Doctoral Colloquium. All submissions for the Doctoral Colloquium will be reviewed based on abstract. During the colloquium, all students will get a chance to present and discuss their work with a panel of experienced place branding researchers and their peers. In addition, PhD students can also submit full papers or abstracts (usually with their supervisors) for presentation at the main conference if they wish. The doctoral colloquium requires a separate registration.

ORGANISING A PANEL SESSION

Panel sessions are intended to stimulate public discussion about critical issues or core challenges to place branding research and practice. Panels consist of four presenters and a discussant, or five presenters. Panel proposals should include 1) a 350-word rationale for the panel; 2) names and affiliations of all presenters; 3) a title and 150-word abstract from each presenter. Panel proposals should include contributions from at least two different countries, feature gender balance, and include not more than two contributors from a single faculty, department, or school. Panels consisting of researchers and practitioners are encouraged.

PARTICIPATION IN THE ART GALLERY

For artwork, submissions may include explorations or interpretations of historical and current place branding themes. All works submitted must be original and inspired by the contributors’ research, practice or wider engagement with place branding, place marketing and related issues. The main aim is to allow members of the community to express their ideas, concerns, ambitions, reflections, questions or conclusions around place brands in ways outside the constraints of usual scientific and academic formats. In this way, we might be able to further inspire each other’s future explorations and direct our research to new avenues. As Albert Einstein said, “Creativity is contagious; pass it on!” Artwork submissions are welcome in any of the following formats: poems and lyrics; songs and music; films and videos; collage; photographic essays; drawings and paintings; sculptures and mixed media, performances. For more information and questions about the IPBA Art Gallery you can contact the curator Mihalis Kavaratzis at: m.kavaratzis@mmu.ac.uk.

PUBLICATIONS PLAN

Selected full papers from the conference might be invited to feature in a Special Issue of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy (an additional review process applies). The organisers are pursuing further publication opportunities in relevant journals. All abstracts submitted and accepted will be included in the Book of Abstracts, which will be shared with all conference participants in electronic form. Accepted full papers will be made available to delegates in proceedings (in public electronic form with ISBN number) if the authors so wish.

COMMITTEES

Program Committee

• João Freire, IPAM Lisboa, Portugal (Chair)
• Ana Passos, Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa/ Universidade Europeia, Portugal
• Mafalda Nogueira, IPAM Porto, Portugal
• Sofia Almeida, Universidade Europeia, Portugal
• Ricardo Abreu, IPAM Lisboa, Portugal
• David Monteiro, ISEG-Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
• Robert Govers (Representing IPBA)

Organizing committee

• João Freire, IPAM Lisboa, Portugal (Chair)
• Ana Passos, Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa/ Universidade Europeia, Portugal
• Mafalda Nogueira, IPAM Porto, Portugal
• Sofia Almeida, Universidade Europeia, Portugal
• Ricardo Abreu, IPAM Lisboa, Portugal
• David Monteiro, ISEG-Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
• Mihalis Kavaratzis, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
• Hong Fan, Tsinghua University Beijing, China
• Magdalena Florek, IPBA, Poland
• Nigel Morgan, University of Surrey, UK

Conference Scientific Committee

• Ricardo Abreu, IPAM Lisboa, Portugal
• Sofia Almeida, Universidade Europeia, Portugal
• Eli Avraham, University of Haifa, Israel
• Cecilia Cassinger, Lund University, Sweden
• Alex Deffner, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece
• Keith Dinnie, University of Dundee, UK
• Don Dioko, IFT Institute for Tourism Studies, Macao SAR , China
• Jasper Eshuis, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands
• Hong Fan, Tsinghua University Beijing, China
• José Fernández Cavia, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain
• Joao Freire, IPAM - Marketing School for Business, Portugal
• Magdalena Florek, IPBA, Poland
• Massimo Giovanardi, Universitá di Bologna, Italy
• Sonya Hanna, Bangor University, Wales, UK
• Marta Hereźniak, University of Lodz, Poland
• Andrea Insch, University of Otago, New Zealand
• Lisa Källström, Kristianstad University, Sweden
• Mihalis Kavaratzis, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
• Arja Lemmetyinen, University of Turku, Finland
• Andrea Lucarelli, Stockholm Business School, Sweden
• Chiara Mauri, LIUC - Università Cattaneo, Italy
• Fabiana Gondim Mariutti, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
• Mafalda Nogueira, IPAM Porto, Portugal
• Nicolas Papadopoulos, Carleton University, Canada
• Cecilia Pasquinelli, University of Naples ‘Parthenope’, Italy
• Ana Passos, Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa/ Universidade Europeia, Portugal
• Olga Rauhut Kompaniets, Halmstad University, Sweden
• Efe Sevin, Towson University, USA
• Vivian Iara Strehlau, ESPM, São Paulo, Brazil
• Viriya Taecharungroj, Mahidol University, Thailand
• Gary Warnaby, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
• Staci Zavattaro, University of Central Florida, USA
• Sebastian Zenker, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Art Gallery Curator

• Mihalis Kavaratzis, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

VENUE

Universidade Europeia and IPAM at the campus Quinta do Bom NomeEstr. da Correia 53, Lisbon

CONTACT

Queries are welcome and can be directed to: info@ipba2026lisbon.org 

SPONSORS