International Women’s Day 2026 Virtual Conference

We invite you to attend the 9th annual International Women’s Day Online Conference hosted by the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute at the University of Guelph on Friday, March 6th from 11:00am - 4:00pm! This year, we will have a keynote presentation, a creative workshop, and research presentations from student researchers, practitioners and artists from a range of backgrounds and disciplines.

The conference’s objective is to connect undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and community members who engage in challenging women-oriented research and work to collectively support and form community with each other. Across departments, disciplines and organizations, many folks work on similar issues from myriad perspectives. This conference is an annual meeting point to reconnect, take pause, share findings, and strengthen bonds with one another. Please join us!

Theme and Description

Our theme this year is Reimagining the Future: Our Stories Deserve Justice. This theme calls us to center the diverse, often marginalized voices that shape what it means to be a woman in our world today. In a time marked by rapid change, global uncertainty, and growing calls for equity, the theme opens its arms wide enough to honour the full spectrum of work in research and beyond, aimed at supporting the needs of underserved communities*, especially women*. It embraces scholarly and creative contributions across academia, policy, activism, the arts, community work, and everyday resistance, recognizing that our stories are not a single narrative, but a rich, sometimes messy, mosaic of lived experience. 

In keeping with the current urgency around equity and human rights, we are called to reimagine systems so that every woman’s story is not only heard but prioritized. Our stories may look profoundly different, across race, class, disability, sexuality, nationality, and motherhood status, and that diversity is our collective strength. For International Women’s Day Conference 2026, this theme is a promise: we will create a space where every woman feels seen, where difference is not merely tolerated but celebrated, and where together, we imagine and build a future in which justice is not the exception, but the foundation. 

*Underserved communities is a wide-ranging term, referring to groups who have been systemically disenfranchised or denied access to basic resources and rights, including more-than-human communities. 

**Women includes anyone who identifies with the gender category of woman. We resist essentialism, welcoming diverse expressions of womanhood. 

How to Access the Conference

Attendees are welcome to come and go throughout the day as it suits their schedule.

The Zoom link to attend will be sent to all registrants via email in advance of the event.

More Information

We will share updates (including a program of the day's events) with all registrants leading up to the conference via email.

This conference is hosted by the University of Guelph's Community Engaged Scholarship Institute in partnership with the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences.