UNICollaboration Conference 2026 - June 4th-5th in Limassol, Cyprus
There was a buzz in the air from the word go. The warm breeze and Limassol’s perfect sunny evening contributed to making the atmosphere warm and welcoming – a perfect place to meet with our colleagues and friends who had flown in from around the world for our biennial conference on virtual exchange.
People drifted into the welcome event on the evening of 3rd June, at the Gazebo Mare located in Limassol’s pretty marina. Exclamations of delight pierced the air as long lost colleagues found each other and warmly hugged one another before grabbing a glass of cool white wine.
As the sun set, small groups began to mingle, to introduce one another, sharing stories of travels, work and absent colleagues. A number of colleagues were unfortunately unable to travel due to the last minute instability in the region. But all was not lost and they were invited to join events online.
It was a gentle and wonderful start to our 2-day event on virtual exchange research and projects and a wonderful mixture of old-hands in virtual exchange, and newbies on the block.
UNICollaboration’s Francesca Helm commented on the amount of new faces in attendance. “I feel like a dinosaur but it’s absolutely wonderful to see so many new comers to the UC conference and to virtual exchange! I feel inspired by the new people.”
Anna Nicolau and her colleagues did a fantastic job welcoming us all and providing with a simply gorgeous venue with golden sand and glinting sea in the sunset.
Our President Shannon Sauro said, “The old guard has been around since the 2014 Intent Conference, which kicked off UC, and I am seeing so many more new faces and this is very exciting to me. But I still feel fresh, fashionable and fun!”
Day 1
The Cyprus University of Technology is in the heart of Limassol, a short and pleasant walk from the old town, through cobbled streets lined with cafés and shops selling an array of attractive items from Cyprus.
Colleagues began arriving at CUT which is housed in a cool modern building artfully designed maintaining some of the old brick walls adjacent to modern tiles and lighting. Anna Nicolau opened the conference and handed over to the first keynote, Tony Liddicoat.
After the morning keynote given by Tony Liddicoat, professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, events got underway. There was a mixture of talks, panel discussions and workshops and it was hard to choose from four events all taking place at the same time in different rooms and changing every 30 minutes or every hours.
Impassioned speeches
Particularly striking was an emotional and impassioned presentation by José Luis Jimenez from Venezuela who spoke about the challenges when working with indigenous peoples and the barriers some face. An engaged audience posed many interesting questions generating ideas for future collaborations. We are sure to hear more of his work in the future as it also encompassed the topic of ‘decolonisation’ which is something that virtual exchange is interested in at the present time.
Hiba Ibrahim shared her work on ‘Exploring Intercultural learning and Empathy and our host, Anna Nicolau and colleagues spoke about ‘Bridging the Global North and Global South through virtual exchange with particular reference to designing inclusive and equitable media literacy virtual exchanges.
Hiba said: “I will keep thinking and reflecting on the design and implementation of our virtual exchanges.”
Steinar Mathisen shared his work in building bridges using virtual exchange in vocational education and Mirjam Hauck chaired a panel discussion on her virtual exchange with Chinese universities.
Workshops followed, with Reinout Klamer, Rob Kuipers and Jos Beelen about Stakeholder mapping in Virtual Exchange (COIL) and Konstantinos Petridis and his partners talked about Advancing Peace Skills and AI through VE.
UNICollaboration’s Rita Koris, Ana Beaven and Mirjam Hauck picked up on the theme of decolonising VE and conducted an interesting and interactive workshop on how to train educators for it.
Memorial Celebration for Sarah Guth
Buzzing with ideas and new friends, some of us headed off to the Molos Seafront Promenade, where our President, Shannon Sauro distributed flowers to the group. Those who wished were invited to share their warm and amusing stories about Sarah Guth, a founding member of UC and former president, who recently passed away. Sarah came across as a thoroughly kind, inclusive, fun and supportive colleague who welcomed all who shared an interest in virtual exchange into the community.
It felt fitting to share our memories and thoughts of her as we tossed the brightly coloured flowers into the turquoise waters.
Evening Events
That evening, we all shared a wonderful traditional Cypriot conference meze meal at Kypriakon Restaurant in the Old Port. Tables were long and loud as attendees shared their thoughts from the day as well as getting to know each other better and making plans for the future.
Day 2
Laia Canals from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya opened the second day, with a keynote focussing on enhanced task-based language learning through interaction in collaborative tasks in computer-mediated communication settings.
Then we were off to sift through another dizzying array of talks, presentations, panels and workshops. These included UNICollaboration’s Francesca Helm, Ana Beaven and Casper van der Heijden from the Sharing Perspectives Foundation reflecting on Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange Initiatives.
Fabian Krengel from Germany gave an interesting talk on building trust and peace building in Critical Virtual Exchange. This was followed up with an interesting and interactive workshop on the topic with Malin Glimang and Mirjam Hauck.
Closing remarks
Shannon Sauro’s closing remarks included handing awards to Hiba Ibrahim for her work in the Palestinian context, to Müge Satar and Carolin Fuchs for their continuing work on the Journal of Virtual Exchange, to Sake Jager for his continued support of UNICollaboration despite supposedly being retired! And to Fabian Krengel for his work on Peace Education.
All in all our conference hosted 128 participants, of which 94 participated in person and 34 online. Our programme included two keynote speakers, 68 presentations, four panel discussions, six workshops and two virtual presentations.
Our host, Anna Nicolaou said: “As the theme of the conference suggests, Virtual Exchange in a Changing World: Innovation and Inclusion, I hope this gathering has embodied both innovation and inclusion while making a meaningful contribution to advancing the field of virtual exchange”.
But it wasn’t over just yet! We were treated to a thorough and in-depth historical tour of Limassol Old Town before pealing off into smaller groups for a final dinner and our goodbyes. We will meet again in two year’s time at the next conference wherever that may be.
Our colleagues, Anouk Vermeulen and Rob Kuipers from Nuffic, the Dutch National Agency commented:
“We are looking back at two wonderful days; were we feel the collaboration spirit between the participants. It was our first time attending this conference and it was easy to meet people.
We particularly valued the mixture of workshops and presentations and were happy to contribute to them. It was inspiring to see how both newcomers as advanced VE practitioners connect and share. In the first keynote Anthony J. Liddicoat, stressed that learning not only happens trough experience, but that reflection is essential. And we definitely did that with a notebook full of reflections and inspirations. Hope to meet you all soon again! “
Some of us will meet before then, for sure, as that is the power and enthusiasm for virtual exchange.
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