Welcome Address and Recognition of IAFOR Scholarship Winners

Welcome to the wonderful City of Light, a global capital of culture, history, architecture, philosophy, fashion, gastronomy, science, and learning. Paris has played an enormous role in European intellectual life over the centuries, as well as in the imagination of so many of the world’s great minds. Historically, its educational institutions have played an important role in the city, and continue to be global centers of excellence in many different fields. The Sorbonne itself, the current home of our conference, boasts more than 750 years of existence, and it is into this great intellectual tradition that our conference writes itself today!

The Paris conferences on Education (PCE2026) and Arts and Humanities (PCAH2026) are now in their fifth iteration, and have firmly established themselves in the The International Academic Forum’s calendar as an annual convention bringing people together across the boundaries of nation, culture, and discipline, and creates the comparative, contrastive, and collaborative laboratory of that makes an IAFOR conference so special.

In these times of uncertainty and resultant domestic and foreign extremism and conflict, conferences such as ours underline the importance of international engagement, as we seek to make sense of a fast-changing world, and make our own contributions to making it one that is better and more sustainable for generations to come. Making sense is no easy task, and not one possible to accomplish alone, and we are pleased to announce that this year, our 5th Paris conferences have attracted some 500 delegates from more than 75 countries! Together we will explore questions of knowledge, framing, and narrative, and of education, pedagogy, teaching, and learning. All of these lie at the heart of our areas of interest and expertise, and as tools that will help guide each other within and beyond the walls of the conference. We have so much to learn from each other!

I encourage your active participation throughout the conference, and hope you have a wonderful time in Paris. I look forward to meeting you all!

Speaker Biography

Joseph Haldane

Joseph Haldane is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s global business and academic operations.

Dr Haldane has a PhD from the University of London in 19th century French Studies (ULIP/RHUL), and has research interests in world history, politics, and education, as well as governance and decision-making.

In 2022, Dr Haldane was named Professor in the United Nations Peace University's European Center for Peace and Development (ECPD). From 2019 he has been also a Visiting Professor at Doshisha University, where he teaches Ethics and Governance in the Global MBA, and a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance since 2017.

Since 2015, he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at The University of Osaka, having taught on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and has been Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary research centre situated within the university, since 2017. He is also a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa, United States.

From 2020 to 2025, Dr Haldane was an Honorary Professor of University College London (UCL), through the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction. Earlier in his career, he held full-time faculty positions at the Université Paris-Est Créteil, Sciences Po Paris, and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas and the Schools of Journalism of Sciences Po Paris and Moscow State University.

Professor Haldane has given invited lectures and presentations at universities and conferences globally, including at the United Nations headquarters in New York, and advised universities, NGOs, and governments on issues relating to international education policy, public-private partnerships, and multi-stakeholder forums. He was the project lead on the 2019 Kansai Resilience Forum, held by the Japanese Government through the Prime Minister’s Office, and oversaw the 2021 Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned study on Infectious Diseases on Cruise Ships.

From 2012 to 2014, Dr Haldane was Treasurer of the Chubu chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce Japan, and since 2015 has been a Trustee of HOPE International Development Agency Japan. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012 and the Royal Society of Arts in 2015. He lives in Japan and holds a black belt in Judo.

About the Presenter(s)
Joseph Haldane is the founder, chairman, and CEO of IAFOR.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Monday Schedule

Presentation Schedule