IAF Europe and Middle East Regional Conference #Facilitate2027: Complete Facilitation
Call for Session Hosts!
Would you like to run a session at next year’s IAF Europe and Middle East Regional Conference in Birmingham on 16th - 17th April 2027 hosted by IAF and Friends in England, Wales and Scotland?
We are thrilled to welcome our Europe and Middle East Regional colleagues alongside our UK cohort for our biggest event yet! To deliver an exceptional programme, an independent panel will review all submissions to curate top calibre sessions.
📌 The 4 Cs of Facilitation
Your 1-hour session should align with one of our key conference themes:
- 🛠️ Craft — Foundations of our profession: core skills, ethics, inclusion and essential tools. Strengthen what you already do well, and learn what you don’t know yet.
- 💡 Clarity — Proving impact, cost and human benefits of facilitation. Learn to articulate your offer, explain your value and prove the difference you make, whether you work alone, in a team or within an organisation.
- 🤖 Change— Future trends and evolving methods. Explore how artificial intelligence, hybrid formats and new tools/ways of designing are reshaping how we do things and the impact we can have. Explore what this means for facilitators today, in the years ahead and in a diverse world.
- ⚖️ Challenge— The most important sessions are rarely the easiest ones. Learn to stay steady through disagreement and uncertainty, hold difficult conversations well, practice solidarity and look after ourselves and each other while doing it. Facilitation also holds the potential to challenge injustice, and contribute to an inclusive sustainable world.
As a team, we have been working to develop an inclusive facilitator community, and we welcome sessions across all tracks that are explicitly focussed on anti-racist, anti-discriminatory practice and allyship.
🎯 What We Are Looking For
Because our attendees are facilitators themselves, sessions should model strong fundamentals - active participation, sharp timekeeping, and an inclusive approach for an international audience where English may be a second language.
Submissions are scored on:
- Clear facilitation focus and learning outcomes
- Engaging session content, design and participant interaction
- Your hosting experience leading large groups with a diversity of knowledge, skills, languages and experiences
- Credibility and experience - your professional background and skills in managing inclusivity in large group settings
Note: We are committed to a diverse, representative programme—aiming for at least 50% of lead hosts based outside England, Scotland and Wales, and at least 10% under age 35.
🔒 Fair Evaluation Process
To keep selection objective, our session reviews are fully anonymised. Assessors will only see your session details without any personal background information. The personal background information will be used in the later stage of the process to ensure that the conference programme has a balance of content and reflects the diversity of the community. Your names will only be revealed to the conference team after selection decisions. Session assessors will be IAF members from across the Europe and Middle East Region.
📝 How to Apply
⏰ Deadline: 6 November 2026, 12:00 PM UTC
Only one application per person can be made (if selected to host a session you will not be able to co-facilitate another session).
Once you submit your application it will be forwarded to the assessment team. We expect the demand for session hosting slots to be high, and early applications are encouraged. Final selection will not be made until November/December so submitting by the deadline will not reduce your opportunity to be selected.
Applications made after the deadline of 6th November will not be considered in this first wave of assessment. There may be another call for submissions made later in December/January based on gaps in the programming and potential numbers of attendees.
💬 Questions or Support?
Need help submitting your proposal? Prefer to submit using a different format? If you need any support or have any specific inclusion requests, please reach out to us anytime: conference@iaf-ew.co.uk
Let’s make this our best IAF conference yet—we can't wait to review your ideas! ✨