Program and speaker details coming soon—please save the date!
The next Myanmar Update conference, 'Contours of a New Myanmar', will be held on Friday, 24 July and Saturday, 25 July 2026 at the Australian National University in Canberra.
The conference is convened by the ANU Myanmar Research Centre in the College of Asia and the Pacific, and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales Canberra.
Conference aims
The conference will explore the social, political, economic, technological, and international changes wrought by the 2021 military coup in Myanmar and the subsequent countrywide resistance to military rule, and consider how these changes are likely to shape a post-conflict Myanmar.
This is an opportunity to explicate and celebrate the revolutionary changes brought about by the Myanmar people’s resistance to military rule, while also reckoning with more problematic aspects of the five-year long civil war.
Ultimately, the aim is to encourage conversations about the new opportunities and complex challenges facing the people of Myanmar – across communities, generations, and genders – as they navigate the path toward a more just, inclusive, and hopeful future.
Paper proposals
The Myanmar Update conference convenors invite paper proposals from interested academics, analysts, researchers, and professionals that address the conference theme in any of the following topic areas: Armed conflict; Democracy and human rights; Gender-based violence; Federalism; Local governance; Economic development; Humanitarian crisis; and international relations. The convenors will group papers into sessions addressing similar issues.
New voices
As in previous Updates, the convenors are keen to receive proposals from new voices, both from within academia and outside it. We are particularly interested in voices from Myanmar.
To facilitate participation by any Myanmar nationals who are unable to secure the necessary documents to travel to Australia, we may organise a parallel event in Thailand before or after the main conference. Further details on this will be provided after the selection of papers.
For further information, please contact Morten Pedersen on myanmar.research@anu.edu.au.
Myanmar Update 2026 Convenors
- Prof Bina D’Costa – Board Member, Myanmar Research Centre, ANU; CEVAW Chief Investigator and ANU Node lead on migration and trafficking. bina.dcosta@anu.edu.au
- Dr Morten Pedersen – Policy director, Myanmar Research Centre, ANU; Senior Lecturer in International Politics, UNSW Canberra. Morten.Pedersen@unsw.edu.au
Sponsors
The workshop is supported by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific; and The Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence against Women (CEVAW Project # CE230100004).
Photo credit: Phoe Thar