Abstract Submissions are Open.

We are thrilled to announce we are now accepting abstract submissions and presentation proposals for the FECCA Conference 2026.

This is a great opportunity to showcase your expertise and share your experience with an audience of community sector leaders, community organisations, service providers, researchers, policy makers, public servants and community members.

We invite you to seize this opportunity and contribute to a national conversation on important issues, lessons from the past, ideas to address new and emerging challenges and collaborate across sectors to find innovative solutions.

Share your ideas, perspectives and experiences to help create a vision for multiculturalism that represents our communities, inspires the sector and directs the work we do.

MAKE A SUBMISSION

Navigating Change, Shaping Australia
Many Stories, One Future

Australia’s greatest asset is its people: diverse, connected, and united by a shared commitment to belonging. Cultural diversity is not a challenge to manage; it is a powerful foundation on which our multicultural nation continues to grow and thrive.

In a time of global uncertainty and growing division, we stand at an important crossroads. Embracing the oldest continuing culture on earth, we can nurture a sense of belonging for all peoples through an approach that is grounded in First Nations’ solidarity and recognises the diversity of all stories.

The choices we make now will shape not only our national identity, but the strength and direction of our future.

This conference brings together leaders, communities, and changemakers from across the country to explore how connection and solidarity can strengthen our collective sense of belonging inform policy, and build a more inclusive and resilient Australia. It is a space to listen, to learn, and to act, grounded in the understanding that when every voice is valued, our collective future is stronger.

At its core, is a call to move forward together. To invest in the relationships that bind us, to stand in solidarity in the face of division, and to shape an Australia where everyone belongs and everyone contributes

Conference Themes

BELONGING & INCLUSION

1. Belonging is Equity: Rethinking Inclusion

Migration realities vs myths
“I’m not racist, but…” → unpacking everyday bias
Discomfort as a tool for growth
Intersectionality in policy and lived experience
Beyond Boxes: hybridity, identity, and complex lives
Social cohesion are we lost?

Belonging is not symbolic—it is structural. equity is the foundation of inclusion.

Focus areas:

HEALTH, WELLBEING & AGEING

3. Health, Ageing & Cultural Safety

Cultural safety in health systems
Rethinking service delivery models
Barriers to access and trust- what can be done differently
Systemic reform for inclusive care
Belonging as a lived relationship
From App to Access: making digital health work

Health is fundamental to belonging, dignity, and wellbeing.

Focus areas:

REGIONAL AUSTRALIA

5. Regional Australia: Inclusion Beyond Cities.

Regional settlement: insights, challenges and lessons learned
Long-term retention in regional areas
Place-based solutions that reflect local strengths and needs
Employment pathways in regional areas

Making the regions more liveable and inclusive for all.

Focus areas:

SOCIAL COHESION

7. From Cohesion to Connection: Building Bridges

Courageous conversations
How to “agree to disagree”
Empathy as a civic skill: strengthening social cohesion through understanding, dialogue, mutual respect, and shared responsibility
Understanding bias and worldview
Decolonising narratives
Lived experience

Moving beyond tolerance toward genuine understanding and connection.

Focus areas:

WOMEN

2. Multicultural Women: Leadership, Agency & Equity

Gender-based violence (GBV)
Paid and unpaid care economy
Economic security and participation
Women’s leadership pathways
Women’s health inequities
Intersectional and community-led solutions

Advancing culturally responsive, gender-transformative policy solutions.

Focus areas:

ARTS & EDUCATION

4. Arts and Education for Truth, Empathy & Critical Thinking

Creative practice to imagine alternative futures
Embedding learnings from Australia’s colonial history
Informal vs formal learning spaces
Teaching critical thinking and empathy
Strengthening anti-racism education
Youth identity and belonging
Decolonising the narrative

Arts and Education shapes belonging—through truth-telling, empathy, and understanding.

Focus areas:

MEDIA LITERACY

6. Media, Misinformation & Social Cohesion:

Media literacy and misinformation
Debunking migration myths
Political narratives and fear-based messaging
Polarisation and its impacts
Building safer, more responsible media ecosystems

The information environment shapes public perception, safety, and division.

Focus areas:

LIVED EXPERIENCE & DATA

8. Beyond the Numbers: Data, Lived Experience and Equity

Community-led research and co-design
Culturally competent and inclusive data collection
Meaningful partnerships (governments, institutions and communities) to co-create evidence/data that informs policy change
Ethical storytelling and representation
Connecting lived experience to policy

What we choose to measure—and whose voices we value—shapes the equity we achieve.

Focus areas:

LANGUAGE

9. Beyond transactional translation: Participation, trust, safety, representation

Transforming Language, Access and Equity systems in a Multilingual Australia

Australia Lost in Translation? Communication & Equity
Recognising bilingual workers and community leaders as essential infrastructure
Digital exclusion
Language Matters -Legal and human rights framing of language access

Focus areas:

Key Dates

THURSDAY
30 APRIL

WEDNESDAY
1 JULY

AUGUST

Call for Abstracts and Registration Open

Abstracts Close at 11:59 PM AEST

Acceptance Advice Issued to Authors

Presenter Acceptance Confirmation Date

LATE
AUGUST

EARLY
SEPTEMBER

MONDAY
30 SEPTEMBER

THURSDAY 15 -
FRIDAY 16 OCTOBER

Program

Presenter Registration Deadline

Conference
Registrations Close

Conference Dates

Presentation Types

We will showcase innovative, community-led solutions to systemic exclusion and disadvantage, grounded in an intersectional lens that ensures the diverse and layered experiences of multicultural communities are recognised and translated into practical, equitable outcomes across all thematic areas.

Who can contribute:

We welcome contributions from grassroots organisations, passionate individuals, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, community leaders and people with lived experience.

Method/Modality:

We encourage individual and collaborative presentations.

We especially encourage presentations that use creative modalities to communicate learnings, experiences and solutions (storytelling, poetry, visual art, film, music, theatre – a debate or comedy).

Please identify format method in your abstract.

ORAL PRESENTATION

About

As the main content of the conference program, successful oral concurrent presentations will be grouped by themes. Oral concurrent sessions will be delivered in allocated session rooms.The duration of the presentation is to be determined.

Presentation-Specific Guidelines

Abstracts will be reviewed according to one of the following categories to ensure the diversity of perspectives across the conference themes:

Research: report on original research, including reviews of original research (e.g., systematic reviews, scoping reviews). Presentations within this category should include conventional elements such as background, aim, methods, results, conclusions, and implications.
Practice: report on innovations in practice while challenging or informing on novel approaches in research and practice.
Lived experience: report on perspectives from community members to discuss topics that need to be addressed and provide new perspectives to inform practice, policy and research.
Thought-provoking ideas: report on ideas that challenge established practices or beliefs, with each presentation providing evidence and a clear future directions and considerations for research, practice or policy.

General Abstract Submission Guidelines

Abstracts will be reviewed after the closing date and the Abstract Review Committee will decide which abstracts will be selected for each presentation type. Please note that selected presentation types upon submission are preferences only and may be subject to change.

For original research and other submissions that involve case studies or evidence, abstracts must contain information addressing these areas:

Background
Methods
Results
Conclusion
Implications

The above structure may not be strictly adhered to if a submission is non-scientific/research abstract. You can participate as a person with lived experience and we encourage story telling methods and creative modalities to present your work through film, art, photography or media.

In this case provide:

Overview of the problem
Why it’s a problem?
Main discussion topics
Implications
Recommendations

The word limit for each abstract submitted is 300 words.

Do not add any references to abstracts.

Abstract Review Criteria

The review criteria will be divided into four sections:

Relevance to multicultural communities
Originality in content
Clarity of abstract and adherence with abstract guidelines
Advances the understanding of multiculturalism in Australia.

FAQs

Frequently asked questions

Abstract Submission Abstract Deadlines & Review Process Abstract Registration Travel & Costs Abstract Submissions & Eligibility Abstract Post-Acceptance & Support

Can I edit my submission?

Yes, once you've submitted your abstract (regardless of whether it is ready for review or not), you'll receive a confirmation email. There is a button to activate and access your account, and you can return anytime before the submission closing date to edit your abstract. Change your answer to "ready to review" to inform us your application is complete.

I have not finished my application yet. Can I still save it?

Yes, you can press the submit button to save your application. Unfortunately, this platform does not have a "save as draft" button (we are working on it!). However, in the application form, we will ask if your application is ready for review. We will follow up with you before the submission closes to ensure your submission is 100% complete.

Terms and Conditions

Oral, poster and symposium submissions will be reviewed without details on author names or affiliations to ensure fairness.
Incomplete or incorrect submissions will be disregarded and not considered for this conference.
If there are multiple people/authors involved in the submitted abstract study/research, all co-authors should be aware of the content of the abstract prior to submission.
Abstracts must be received by the advertised closing date.
Abstracts may be considered for formats that are not the preferred format of the submitter.
All presenters must be registered to attend the conference.
There is no limit to the number of abstracts submitted. A maximum of 2 presentations can be accepted for any submitter (e.g., oral and poster presentation).
Abstracts of presentations that have been previously presented at a conference will not be accepted.
All presentations at the conference may be recorded.

Abstract Submissions are Open.