Biennial Conferences

ICA holds a Conference every second year except a Congress year.

It is open to all, but members receive registration benefits, as they can register earlier and pay a lower fee. The biennial conferences consists of three core elements:

• Governance meetings
• A professional programme open to all
• The National Archivists Forum (FAN)

The Deputy Secretary General supports the general organization, liaison with hosts, Programme Commission (PCOM) and the ICA Secretariat, and development of the programme content.
 

Programme themes and content are determined by PCOM members with the assistance of appointed experts on the topics concerned, the host country, and sections and branches as appropriate. There is a call for papers, so the ultimate programme is enriched by contributions form from within the ICA network as well as from educators and professionals working in related disciplines.

The biennial conferences are the main international archival event for that year. ICA has members in 198 different countries, as well as bringing together sections with common professional interests and regions with varying and different archival traditions. The Programme Commission focuses on key professional challenges and works to develop solutions and products to support the members in their work as well as to represent archives and records management interests, contributing advice as well as content in international cultural, heritage, governmental and technology representational bodies and initiatives. All of these separate strands of ICA’s work come together at conference time to be presented, discussed, and developed, and to inspire new initiatives and focuses for ICA bodies.

The ICA began holding biennial conferences as of 2022. Prior to that, Annual Conferences were held from 2013 to 2021, replacing the Round Table conferences (CITRAs) which were only open to invited participants and did not issue a call for submissions of papers. 

See the History of CITRA