The event will take place in person in Pavia at Aula Bottigella (Palazzo San Tommaso) from 1 to 3 September 2026 and is open to researchers from EC2U Alliance Partner Universities. This conference provides a valuable opportunity to examine the pervasive presence of biases and misinformation in texts and their consequences in educational and professional contexts. 

The importance of studying biases

In an era where information is easily accessible and shared, the ability to critically assess information with respect to potential biases and misinformation is essential, particularly in a higher education setting. 

Biases have a long tradition of study in psychology, intercultural studies, media studies, discourse studies and linguistics, among other fields. Recently, bias studies have proven essential in artificial intelligence, due to the tendency of large language models to inherit biases from their training data and amplify them through their technology. However, while AI studies have laid vital groundwork, many fail to critically engage with what constitutes bias in the first place. More generally, most authors do not engage with the relevant literature outside of their discipline, which constitutes a significant theoretical and methodological drawback. 

Interdisciplinary perspectives

Against this background, the conference encourages an interdisciplinary approach aiming to combine perspectives from linguistics, discourse studies, intercultural communication, psychology, cultural and literary studies, social and political sciences, and law. 

The goal is to uncover common ground and find synergies to study the phenomenon of biases, and foster the engagement of the academic community in promoting a critical information culture and awareness that safeguards accuracy and fairness, through appropriate dissemination actions and best-practices.

How to submit your proposal

The call for proposal is open to researchers from the EC2U Partner Universities. 

Submissions should foster an interdisciplinary approach, combining perspectives from linguistics, psychology, social sciences, law, and cultural studies.

Relevant topics include:

• Analysis of cultural biases, stereotypes, and prejudices.
• Linguistic markers (syntactic, pragmatic, etc.) of biased language.
• Cognitive bias and the role of biases in education and training.
• Biases in AI and Natural Language Processing tasks.
• Ethics and fairness concerning different types of biases.

The conference will feature oral and poster presentations, and a round table. The distribution of accepted contributions across both formats (oral presentation or poster) will in no way reflect the quality of the proposal, but will be based on the extent to which the content adapts to each format.

Candidate selections are performed locally by the EC2U Partner Institutions.

Deadline: May 6, 2026
Please contact the local coordinators at your home university to apply and for further details. Selections must be communicated to the University of Pavia by this date.