Full CfP to be published on the second half of September
12th International Conference on Smart Learning Ecosystem and Regional Development
2027: design learning ecosystems: interactions, co-design, and adaptive futures
The unprecedented social, technological, environmental, and cultural transformations of our time call for a renewed understanding of learning ecosystems. As artificial intelligence, data-driven technologies, and hybrid physical-digital environments increasingly permeate our world, future learning ecosystems should not only become more intelligent; they should become more ecological, equitable, ethical and inclusive to become a driver for systemic transformations. Future ecosystems should cultivate adaptive relationships among people, technologies, institutions, communities, and the living world. Designing these ecosystems requires learning not only from humans but also from the organizational principles of nature, where resilience emerges through diversity, interdependence, and continuous adaptation.
This call promotes an ecosystem perspective on learning as a dynamic and evolving network of human and non-human actors, technologies, institutions, practices, values, and places that collectively shape learning experiences through:
• Interactions rather than isolated entities. Learning emerges from the quality of relationships among learners, educators, communities, intelligent technologies, institutions, and environments. Understanding and designing these interactions is essential for fostering meaningful learning experiences.
• Co-dependence between living and non-living components. Human actors, AI systems, digital infrastructures, learning spaces, policies, artifacts, and natural environments are mutually interdependent. Learning ecosystems are therefore socio-technical and increasingly more-than-human, requiring design approaches that acknowledge multiple forms of agency and intelligence. These perspectives encourage designers to learn from the adaptive strategies, communication mechanisms, and cooperative behaviours found in natural ecosystems, inspiring new approaches to resilience, collective intelligence, and sustainable learning environments. Rather than viewing nature simply as a context for learning, this perspective recognizes ecological systems as active sources of knowledge for designing future learning ecosystems.
• Continuous adaptation. Learning ecosystems are never static. They evolve through feedback, experimentation, co-design, and collective learning. Their resilience depends on the capacity of their actors and infrastructures to continuously adapt to emerging challenges, technologies, and societal transformations.
Important Dates
- Paper submission: 1st March 2027
- Notification of acceptance: 12th April 2027
- Camera-ready submission: 10th May 2027
- Conference dates : May 24th-25th, 2027
Submission Instructions
Accepted papers also presented at the conference will be published in a special issue of the IxD&A Journal (https://ixdea.org/; ISSN 1826-9745, e-ISSN 2283-2998) indexed by SCOPUS and Emerging Sources of Web of Science (Citescore: 2.50).
Papers should be written according to the Instruction for Authors available at https://ixdea.org/authors-guidelines/.
Accepted papers will be candidate to a best paper award in collaboration with IAALDE.
Submission categories:
• long papers: 13-24 pages
• short papers: 6-12 pages
Submission procedure:
Papers submission is handled through OJS – https://ojs.ixdea.org/index.php/ixdea/about/submissions (select section: SI: SLERD 2027 – long paper or SI: SLERD 2027 – short paper) SLERD and IxD&A follow a double-blind reviewing process, thus papers need to be fully anonymized.