Cancelling in-person Congress wounds humanities research

Budget squeeze and logistical complexities leave the century-old conference without a host.

Michael Holden

June 10, 2025

Last month, the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS) — a pan-Canadian organization representing dozens of scholarly associations — announced that it will be unable to hold its 2026 Congress after an unnamed institution backed out of months-long negotiations to host the event.

It is, instead, offering a virtual conference next year, with a “smaller-scale, in person event at a yet-to-be-determined location,” according to an announcement issued by FHSS president and CEO Karine Morin.

Congress — whose June 2025 edition included some 7,000 faculty, graduate students and community members at Toronto’s George Brown College — is Canada’s largest academic gathering. The event has been a mainstay of Canadian humanities and social science research for nearly a century. The cancellation of the in-person event for 2026 has sent research groups into a scramble to arrange alternatives that will be smaller, less well-funded, and that will garner less attention from host venues and the public.

The road has been rocky for Congress since the COVID-19 pandemic, when the conference was cancelled in 2020 and moved online for 2021 and 2022.

Last year, when Congress was to be held at McGill University in Montreal, dozens of scholarly associations cancelled their participation in the conference or made last-minute moves to alternative sites amidst an active strike by McGill professors in the Faculty of Law and a protest encampment in the field that would have hosted the Federation’s beer tent. Many research groups — my own included — found it untenable to ask delegates to gather behind picket lines in a business-as-usual manner, mere days after students had been tear-gassed on their own campus.

With a year to go before the next scheduled Congress in June 2026, some readers might wonder why the FHSS doesn’t simply find a new host. But the Federation has stated that alternatives have been considered, and ruled out, because of the logistics involved in mounting an event that can gather upwards of 10,000 people. For five years I ran the largest conference within Congress for the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, so I know first-hand how complex those logistical layers can be.

Hosting large scholarly gatherings has become something like the Olympics: expensive, politically fraught and an endeavour that few institutions are rushing to undertake amidst widespread austerity measures and mounting budget challenges.

There are alternatives to hosting conferences like Congress at universities — many comparable events in the United States are hosted at hotels and convention centers — but such venues almost always cost much more than academic spaces and come with their own suite of problems.

Some of my colleagues have suggested that individual scholarly associations go their own way. They point to the Federation’s repeated crises as evidence that a century-old model of mega-conferencing doesn’t meet their members’ needs. They have a point: cost, accessibility and scholarly representation are serious issues that deserve attention.

But the death of in-person scholarly gatherings like Congress would be a real loss for Canadian research. Such gatherings create space (often imperfectly) for graduate students, early-career scholars and seasoned faculty to come together, share their research and build collaborative networks across universities, provinces and scholarly disciplines. Such conferences are one of the most reliable ways to meet with colleagues from far-flung institutions who don’t often travel to smaller research centers like my own city of Winnipeg.

The Federation in particular serves as an advocate for research in the Humanities and Social Sciences and dedicates significant funding to support research excellence and advance equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization goals. Its logistical work hosting Congress each year enables many small, volunteer-run associations to focus on research instead of fiddling with administrative minutiae.

Canadian research institutions face immense pressure, while internationally research in the humanities and social sciences is being directly threatened. Amidst this turbulence, Canadian academics need robust scholarly spaces to gather and strengthen the role of research in society. Scattering those spaces to the wind and duplicating organizing efforts does nothing to strengthen Canadian research.

The Federation is not a perfect organization. Its Congress has faced many challenges over the past seven years, for which it has been rightly criticized. But amidst those criticisms and the challenges facing Canadian researchers, we need universities to step up, prove that they value humanities and social sciences research, and continue to create spaces for that work to occur.

Congress isn’t just an event, it’s a community. Creating strong research communities takes ongoing work, which means Congress needs champions willing to do that work — together.

Michael Holden

Michael Holden, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Winnipeg.

7 Comments

So agreed!
We need Congress more than ever!
Dr. Holden said it best:
“ Amidst this turbulence, Canadian academics need robust scholarly spaces to gather and strengthen the role of research in society. Scattering those spaces to the wind and duplicating organizing efforts does nothing to strengthen Canadian research. ”

Thanx for this. I have also greatly benefited from being able to attend events hosted by cognate scholarly societies which I would never had attended had they not been held concurrently with my own society’s conference.

This has been building for a while. With significant budget pressures on many institutions and individual researchers, and with low-cost virtual alternatives available, priorities are changing.

I’ve been to several virtual conferences now, first because of the pandemic, and then because of changing priorities. They work well for their academic purposes, but the social function suffers, of course.

I wrote this about costs of the big Archaeology conference 8 years ago now, and the pressures have only escalated since: https://archeothoughts.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/the-cost-of-attending-the-saa-meeting/

I owe much of my career – not to mention life-long friendships – to Congress (formerly “the Learneds”). Meeting with faculty across Canada was not only intellectually stimulating, it had strong political importance, especially for those of us in allegedly “marginal” areas (think WOMS, decades ago). And needless to say, the Beer Tent was a great equalizer. Formal, virtual connection has its place, but our enterprise will be the poorer for this loss of direct human contact.

“comparable events in the United States are hosted at hotels and convention centers — but such venues almost always cost much more than academic spaces and come with their own suite of problems.” The link to a story about the “suite of problems” shows that they are also about labour disruptions. Sounds to me like academic associations are the problem here: too cheap to pay for what they need and reliant on exploited workers to make our events possible. We should be ashamed. Maybe we should just be prepared to pay a fair price for what we’re getting instead of constantly demanding that everyone else bear our costs?

Thank you for making the case for the importance of Congress despite its flaws. In this moment when travel to scholarly conferences in the United States is being avoided and even advised against for safety reasons, maintaining and even expanding our Canadian opportunities to gather and share research should be a priority. Institutions, funding bodies and individuals need to step up.

Thanks for this synopsis. But as president of a small/medium-sized Federation-member association, I have to disagree with the characterization of the benefits of attending Congress. We left Congress in 2017 and have returned twice (UBC and Montreal) to chaos and added fees.

The Federation’s portals and deadlines are logistical nightmares. They don’t work and add layers of complication that don’t exist when we go it alone. The Federation’s additional protocols nearly destroyed our association in 2024—before the effects of the strike and protests were felt. Organizing your own conference is easy compared to working with Congress.

Congress does not create community because individuals need to pay separately for each association meeting. How can collaborative networks be created when you can’t attend other associations unless you pay more or sneak in? This has always been the Learneds/Congress’s tragic flaw.

It would make more sense for individual, like-minded associations to work out where to meet, together or adjacently, and with Presses. Perhaps this would let the Federation focus on advocacy without being distracted by putting on an expensive party with segregated attendees. Maybe this is the opportunity for associations to go back to basics and for the Federation to learn what it can contribute. While their politics are increasingly troublesome, for the 25 years I’ve been attending the Learneds/Congress there have been deeper practical issues that have proven incurable.

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