The 14th National Mediation Conference will be held from Tuesday 9 – Thursday 11 September 2014. Chosen from delegates’ feedback, the selected theme for 2014 is “Pathways to Resolution: the Challenge of Diversity”.

The conference website has just been launched and can be found here.

Conference Co-conveners Tania Sourdin and Walter Ibbs explain what the conference is and how it works

The Conference will bring together diverse practitioners, policy makers, researchers, managers, judges and leaders in the field of mediation, negotiation and dispute resolution to explore the diversity of experience, conflict, intellectual outlook, cognitive style, cultural competence and many other attributes that contribute to the richness of the resolution environment.

This Melbourne NMC is especially exciting for those of us who do research in the field of dispute resolution, as for the first time the National Mediation Conference will be combined with the Research Forum of the National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Council (NADRAC). The two great dispute resolution research events in Australia will now be combined. It is going to be a dispute resolution ideas fest and we should all expect to walk away mind-boggled and tongue-tied. Sourdin and Ibbs write ‘This addition will provide delegates with the opportunity to meet and engage on the latest trends and issues in ADR research.’ The 2 day Research forum will start on the last day of the NMC and will continue the next day also.

Since the demise of NADRAC, it is not clear what the status of the research forum will be. But there are many working hard behind the scenes to ensure that it goes ahead regardless. 

The call for papers is now open and abstracts can be submitted from now until 21 February 2014 here.

The theme of the conference is ‘Diversity’.

 The Conference Organisers are particularly interested in presentations that support this theme. The concurrent sessions will be grouped into the following general streams and presenters should nominate to which stream their presentation or poster will relate.

 The streams are:

• Family;
• Business & Workplace;
• Court & Tribunals;
• Community Mediation;
• System Design, Public and Statutory ADR;
• Online dispute resolution/New technologies;
• Training & Standards;
• International Approaches;
• Mediation Practice (including blended, cultural & inclusive ADR practice); and
• NADRAC ADR Conference stream.