This year’s iConference was hosted by my former colleagues at Edinburgh Napier University, with on-site sessions for 340 delegates taking place at the University’s Craiglockhart campus between 29th March and 2nd April 2026. I was delighted to join the event to catch up with old colleagues and external work friends, and to learn about new directions in information science research from the next generation of researchers.

The venue with its large, open ground floor area, was perfect for such an event, not least for ease of networking.

Networking on the ground floor of Edinburgh Napier University’s Craiglockhart campus at the 2026 iConference

I am full of admiration for the local organising team, headed by Dr Frances Ryan and Dr Iain McGregor, for undertaking such a huge conference commitment. Their superb organisational skills contributed much to the successful delivery of a great conference.

Dr Frances Ryan opens the 2026  iConference at Edinburgh Napier University

Perhaps because I have been an emeritus professor for the past three and half years, the stand-out session for me was not a paper, panel session, poster or keynote speech, but the conference dinner. Here I sat at one of the beautifully laid tables beside two of the colleagues with whom I have collaborated the most in my career – Dr Bruce Ryan and Dr Peter Cruickshank (also retired) – and with my Finnish friend Professor Isto Huvila.

Table settings for the conference dinner

After the meal, I caught up with the Dean of the School of Engineering, Computing and the Built Environment (SCEBE) Professor Peter Andras, and my former colleague Dr Debbie Meharg. (Debbie, who now works at Aberdeen University, was on the team that put in the initial bid for Napier to host the 2026 iConference.) Then I joined in conversations with Frances Ryan and two colleagues from two other Scottish universities: Professor Ian Ruthven from Strathclyde, and Dr Ian Anderson from Glasgow.

Amongst others, I also chatted with an Iranian PhD student based in British Colombia whose fascinating research is concerned with provenance information displayed alongside Persian artefacts in five major exhibitions held across the world in the twentieth century, and an American colleague who apparently had designs of tempting me out of retirement!

Dr Frances Ryan and Professor Hazel Hall at the iConference 2026

For me, the other main highlight of the 2026 iConference was an ‘Edinburgh enlightenment and geology’ walking tour. My former colleague Dr David Haynes, who retired from a lecturing post within SCEBE last year, led this part of the conference’s social programme.

Over 90 minutes on the last afternoon of the iConference, David took a group of delegates through central Edinburgh, following a route that included the Lawnmarket, the Mound, Princes Street Gardens, and Calton Hill. We made several stops along the way for David to speak on the theme of Edinburgh as a city of Enlightenment ideas and one created by its geology. David cleverly linked together the themes of philosophy, science and the landscape, often highlighting the work of James Hutton, the father of modern geology. David explained the ways in which Edinburgh in the eighteenth century provided conditions that provoked questions about the age of the world, and encouraged the exchange of ideas amongst key Enlightenment figures such as David Hume and Adam Smith.

At the conclusion of the formal part of the tour, six of us headed into the Edinburgh New Town for tea and biscuits in one of the city’s private gardens.

The slideshow below captures some of the moments in David’s tour.

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The next iConference in 2027 will be jointly hosted by Victoria University of Wellington and Monash University. The virtual programme will take place from 22nd to 25th March 2027, with the on-site part of the conference taking place on campus at  Victoria University of Wellington from 5th to 9th April 2027. Unfortunately I don’t expect to be travelling all the way to New Zealand for this event. However, I hope that those lucky enough to attend the iConference in 2027 will find it as well worth the journey as those who came to Edinburgh in 2026.