5th International Symposium on Digital Transformation (ISDT)
The Fifth Annual International Symposium on Digital Transformation will again be hosted by Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden after four successful events in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Organized by Linnaeus University’s Digital Transformations Knowledge Environment, the event welcomes participants from around the world to present and engage with different possibilities, current efforts and rising trends in the emerging field of Digital Transformation. For the first time, ISDT 2026 is held in collaboration with the LNU Big Data conference with joint events and a conference dinner.
More information about the Big Data conference on this webpage.
Registration is now open! Please see below.
Together with our international colleagues, our goal is to encourage versatile approaches to societal challenges in various areas influenced by digitalization. In 2026, the symposium will concentrate on the following themes:
- Examples of digital transformation
- Ethical implications of digital transformation
- Collaborative approaches to digital transformation with a demonstrated liaison between academia, the public and private sectors.
- Engaging with digital transformation by combining methodologies and approaches from different disciplines.
We see the following research areas as highly relevant to these four themes:
- Digital business
- Digital learning & the digitalization of education
- Digital health
- Artificial Intelligence
- Digital working life
- Digital Humanities
We welcome abstracts clearly related to any of the above research areas, in addition to abstracts that might not specifically fall within these areas (a general track).
Please submit an abstract of 500-1000 words online by May 31, 2026. All abstracts will undergo a single-anonymous peer review and we encourage submissions from senior researchers, early career researchers, and postgraduate students.
The symposium will take place on 23–25 September in Växjö, Sweden. It is free to participate either online or in person.
IMPORTANT DATES
Deadline for abstract submissions: May 31, 2026
Notification of decision: July 15, 2026
For more information please contact:
Dr. Emily Hanscam, emily.hanscam@lnu.se
Dr. Soumitra Chowdhury, soumitra.chowdhury@lnu.se
Dr. Johan Vaide, johan.vaide@lnu.se
More information about the 1st International Symposium on Digital Transformation
More information about the 2st International Symposium on Digital Transformation
More information about the 3rd International Symposium on Digital Transformation.
More information about the 4th International Symposium on Digital Transformation.
Keynote speakers
Professor Ricardo Climent, The University of Manchester, UK
Title: Engineering Empathy: Scaling Human Connection Through Playful Digital Systems
Abstract: How can we design digital systems that scale human connection without reducing people to data points? Contemporary efforts to address global social and environmental challenges face a persistent tension: large-scale interventions often lose personal meaning, while intimate, meaningful acts of care and exchange are difficult to scale.
KeepItHuman, a videogame studio spun out of music research at the University of Manchester, approaches this as a design problem, one that can be addressed through interactive systems, game mechanics, and digital infrastructure. This talk navigates how (game) play can function as a mediating layer between global issues and individual experience, enabling forms of participation that preserve meaning while operating at scale. This is illustrated through three design patterns developed across applied game projects:
Traceability Mechanics (linking play to real-world outcomes and back): In Timbi World, collaborative musical puzzle-solving unlocks a digital skateboard, which in turn triggers the donation of a real skateboard to a child at Maputo Skate in Mozambique.
Provenance Mechanics (connecting ecological knowledge to lived experience): In Mangrove World, players experience the protective role of mangroves by engaging in a collaborative survival game developed with conservation partners in the Philippines, integrating local ecological knowledge and soundscapes.
Gifting Mechanics (reframing consumption and value): In My Favourite T-Shirt, players exchange meaningful digital garments and narratives, confronting the environmental cost of fast fashion through acts of digital gifting and transformation within the game world.
These three taxonomies explore how digital systems can embed traceability, meaning, and human bondinginto scalable infrastructures of participation. This leads to a central question to co-creators and system designers: How can digital systems scale care and provenance without flattening the particularity of human experience into abstraction
Speaker biography: Ricardo Climent is Professor of Interactive Music and founding Director of NOVARS Innovation & Media Lab at the University of Manchester since 2007. A pioneering composer and interactive music and media scholar, he works at the intersections of physical and digital creativity to unlock new forms of storytelling and engagement, igniting local and global change. His research explores the relationships between digital technologies and the self in staged performance. Through KeepItHuman, a digital game ecosystem for collaborative altruism, he turns play into action on global challenges, working with NGOs in the Philippines, and Mozambique, schools in deprived areas in the UK and sustainable fashion brands.
Ricardo is an ecosystem builder across the humanities and the sciences, who has worked with over thirty partners, including orchestras, Crea-Tech organisations, chemical engineers, and ML algorithm designers on practice-led research projects around Music and Creative AI. As a composer he has received numerous international commissions from leading performers and cultural organisations. He holds a degree in Economics from the University of Valencia and completed his Master's and PhD in interactive music and media technologies at Queen's University Belfast, where he held a 5-year research post at SARC, the Sonic Arts Research Centre. He has held residencies at the Conservatorio de Morelia in Mexico and KunitachiCollege of Music in Tokyo, and the Technical University of Berlin (TUB), and has co-led international networks such as the EASTN-DC consortium funded by Creative Europe (2017-2022) and a Dutch-UK network.
Ricardo holds the UNESCO-Aschberg Composer in Residence Prize and the 2016 ICMA European Regional Award, is an invited keynote speaker, most recently at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, and has authored two impact case studies for the UK Research Excellence Framework. His work has long found a home in the Nordic scene, presented at Fylkingen in Stockholm and supported by IDKA in Sweden with appearances at the Push Festival in Gävle.
Ricardo has built entrepreneurship routes in the arts through three spin-outs, and has co-designed cross-disciplinary projects at scale, including S.LOW Projekt, SinesandSquares, LocativeAudio, Audification and UnSupervised UK. He has graduated 18 PhDs as main supervisor, with six more in progress, and overseen more than fifty masters portfolios and dissertations. He is currently Postgraduate Research Director for Music at the University of Manchester, and served as Director of Composition there for a decade and as Social Responsibility and Internationalisation Music lead.
About Linnaeus University
Linnaeus University is a creative and international knowledge environment that promotes curiosity, creativity, companionship and utility. More than 44,000 students are registered at Linnaeus University.
Linnaeus University is located in Växjö and Kalmar, offering 150 degree programmes and 1,300 single-subject courses. Linnaeus University was established in 2010 through a merger between Växjö University and Kalmar University College.
With some 2,100 employees, Linnaeus University is a modern university with Småland as its base and the world as its arena. Studying and working at Linnaeus University involves being part of an environment that is characterised by knowledge and development. Students acquire new knowledge and are encouraged to think critically. Researchers make new discoveries that can bring change to our society. Employees share stories of a challenging and rewarding workplace. Linnaeus University is a university where people can reach their full potential.
A sustainable event
This conference is a sustainability-assured meeting in accordance with Linnaeus University’s guidelines for sustainable events. These guidelines are linked to the 17 global goals in Agenda 2030 and comprise the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, the social, and the environmental.
Learn more about Linnaeus University's sustainable events here.