Call for Abstracts: Prototypes for Humanity - Submission Deadline 22 May 2026

Dear Colleagues, 

I am pleased to invite the submission of abstracts to the Prototypes for Humanity 2026 Short Papers Platform. 

Abstract Submission Deadline: 22nd May 2026
Invitations to Successful Authors: 8th July 2026
Conference Dates: 15th - 19th November, Dubai, UAE 

** Description **

The Short Papers Platform provides a forum for professors to share their research and engage in interdisciplinary dialogue, fostering global collaboration and knowledge exchange, with a focus on driving real-world impact through academic research.

For 2026, Prototypes for Humanity is delighted to announce the launch of a strategic partnership with the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), for the Short Papers Platform. This joint effort reinforces the programme’s commitment to advancing impactful innovation through collaboration between academia and industry, focusing on the key sectors and themes that reflect international research priorities and that are relevant to the city and to the fund. 

Themes 

• Wellbeing and Human Performance
• Infrastructures and Cities
• Autonomous Systems and Advanced Manufacturing
• Environment, Sustainability and Energy
• Mobility and Logistics
• Socio-Economic Empowerment, Digital Economies and Future Markets
• Open and Speculative

Awards

As part of the programme’s ongoing commitment to research translation, ICD will award a $50,000 prize to one of the short papers presented at the conference. The award recognises academic work with strong potential for practical application, identified through engagement with ICD industry experts, and will support the winning project’s next stage of development towards implementation.

Submissions

Full details can be found at: https://www.prototypesforhumanity.com/press-releases/stories/Call_For_Abstracts_2026

Apply here: https://form.jotform.com/260705028532451?source=https://www.jisc.ac.uk

Deadline for abstract submission: 22 May, 2026

We strongly encourage you to apply where your interests and research aligns with the programme’s thematic areas.

If you have any questions, please contact us at professors AT prototypesforhumanity.com

Sarah Ward
University Relations Manager
Prototypes for Humanity

E: sarah.ward AT prototypesforhumanity.com

My source: Email - https://www.bcs-sgai.org/

Call for Submissions: Reimagining the Frontline - The Evolving Roles of Community Health Workers (CHWs) in a Changing World

Dear HIFA Colleagues,

Are you a researcher operating in the community health space?

Sage Health Service Insight Journal, a JCR-ranked, peer-reviewed, fully Open Access journal with an Impact Factor of 2.5. launched a Special Collection focused titled:

Reimagining the Frontline:

The Evolving Roles of Community Health Workers (CHWs) in a Changing World
 https://journals.sagepub.com/topic/collections-his/002164/hisa

Your perspective would be invaluable to this collection, especially at a time when CHWs are at a pivotal crossroad. From navigating funding pressures and the health impacts of climate change to harnessing AI and digital tools, their roles are evolving faster than ever. This collection seeks to capture that transformation through rigorous, forward-looking research.

We welcome research articles and review articles on these topics: 

• Sustainable financing and economic models in a constrained landscape 
• Digital transformation: AI, mHealth, and data equity
• Adapting to emerging health threats and new health conditions 
• CHW resilience and wellbeing

Submission deadline: 13 July 2026

Additionally, authors may be eligible for APC discount through: 

• Sage Publishing Open Access Agreements (institutions with an agreement with Sage) 
  https://www.sagepub.com/explore-our-content/blogs/posts/sage-perspectives/2025/10/01/what-happens-after-you-submit-to-a-special-collection 
• Research4Life country discounts (50% or 100% waiver for Category A and B countries, respectively)

Please note that only the highest applicable discount would apply to the standard publication fee, as authors would be unable to stack the discounts.

We deeply appreciate your consideration and would be delighted to feature your work in this Special Collection. Please feel free to reach out if you have any further questions.

Should you have any questions about the Special Collection, please do not hesitate to reach out to the Guest Editors directly: Abimbola.Olaniran AT outlook.com and Roosa.Sofia.Tikkanen AT fhi.no. For journal-related queries, please contact: Katalin.Orosz AT sagepub.co.uk

Thank you so much for considering this invitation. I truly look forward to the possibility of featuring your work.

Best regards,

Drs Abimbola Olaniran & Roosa Sofia Tikkanen Guest Editors, Health Services Insights Special Collection

HIFA profile: Abimbola A. Olaniran (MB;BS, PhD, EMBA) is a physician, researcher, and digital health entrepreneur with over twenty years of experience at the intersection of clinical care, health systems research, and policy in Africa. He continues to collaborate with local and international partners as well as national governments across Africa on health policy, workforce planning, and implementation research. His mission is to ensure that the AI revolution serves the most underserved, building from the continent, for the continent. Abimbola.Olaniran AT outlook.com

 

🔷 

Just to add: In addition, if I can support any CHW's and team colleagues and managers in a contribution using Hodges' model, I would be pleased to do so.

My source: HIFA list

Submit your pitch for Black History Month 2025

London Arts and Health
and The Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance

To celebrate Black History Month this year, London Arts and Health and The Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance will commission six artists to explore and showcase their creative practices. This initiative is rooted in the belief that the arts can be a powerful force for health, climate justice, and cultural empowerment.

More details ...

Parity of Esteem: It's all smoke and mirrors ...

Having just visited the National Gallery and an exhibition on Millet:

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/millet-life-on-the-land

Dr Sanil Rege on twitter provided:

🧵Psychiatry as a Scapegoat-And the Mirror We’d Rather Not Face 🚨1/11

‘Psychiatry isn’t real medicine.’
‘Psychiatry medicalises normal life.’
‘Psychiatry is pseudoscience.’
‘Psychiatry is dangerous.’
‘Psychiatry is built on lies’
⁰Psychiatry is the perfect object of… https://t.co/1XMdwtH5Nz pic.twitter.com/HQpkMvtxfm

— Dr Sanil Rege FRANZCP | MRCPsych (@sanilrege) September 2, 2025

Seeing, and reading (again?) about 'The Faggot Gatherers' I couldn't help but see socio-economic history enacted:

'Two women are taking a short rest from gathering tree branches for sale as firewood. The older woman’s hunched back and clawed hands betray a lifetime of physical toil. The setting is the forest of Fontainebleau, south of Paris, close to the village of Barbizon. Millet was an exponent of Realism, a movement that rejected historical art and idealisation in favour of a truthful view of contemporary reality.'

Text: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/232271

Winter, The Faggot Gatherers Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) National Museum Cardiff

The National Gallery's accompanying text reads:

'Three women are on their way home trom the forest of Fontainebleau. One of its entrances, the Porte aux Vaches, is visible at the back right. The staggering scale of their loads threatens to overwhelm them in their stumble homewards. The scene evokes Millet's 1851 letter to his biographer Alfred Sensier, in which he described how seeing 'a poor figure laden with a faggot reminded him of the constant fatigue of people's lives.
While the painting is unfinished, the elemental figures are typical of Millet's vork. The extreme simplification of their forms results in austere silhouettes.'

Mental illness has always been a facet of humanity, evidence of trephination from prehistoric times and across cultures and geographies bears testimony to the mind - body divide. Life was brutish physically too. What chance did the weakest stand? If, that is a broken bone: you could be left behind? But perhaps we underestimate the knowledge and experience of our ancient ancestors. Knowledge gained and passed orally, culturally, even before written history. Perhaps too, we struggle to understand how early humanity expressed itself beyond the big-stick of nature and the struggle for survival as the hominids that led to 'us' were winnowed down?

Even as recent as the 19th century life was hard. As the notes above attest, Millet's work seeks to record the sheer physicality of labour, even as the industrial age emerged. The advent of the industrial revolution brought its own pressures and privations, as pastoral life is replaced with change work at home (spinning cotton) to urban and factory growth. 

Severe mental illness would have been institutionalised in poor houses, religious and charitable organisations. Parity of esteem is grounded, to some extent in the questions: "What happened to you?", or "How are you feeling today?" In Millet's work the physical cost and strain stands out. While in the L'Angelus there is debate about prayer, or grief. What is visible usually speaks first, and stands for itself. This is why self-awareness, reflection, critical thinking, observational and interpersonal skills are important; and why mental health nursing calls for specific knowledge and skills. And, in psychiatry too, even when the same is contested.

Image source: Oil on carvas Lent by Amgueddfa Cymry - Museum Wales. Bequeathed by Gwendoline Davies in 1952.

Essay: 'Addressing health inequalities through employment' July 2025

Four priorities:

1. Establish closer working relationships across the SA [Strategic Authorities] ecosystem to prioritise action on health inequalities.  
   
   
2. Align resources to support people on their journey to sustainable employment.
   
   
3. Negotiate with government for greater permissions.
   
   
4. Harness the power of anchors.

 

Many useful references are also provided, e.g. Building Blocks of Health. Plus the discussion of anchors.

Individual

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

employment as a determinant of health mental & emotional health Early intervention, employer-employee liaison, health coaching*	PLACE - PLANET physical health - life-expectancy LOCAL - accessible
SOCIO- people & communities flourishing communities neighbourhood People in communities on  LONG-TERM SICKNESS WORKWELL grants* WIDER DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH SOCIAL VALUE OF HEALTH low-quality jobs - poorer health Poverty - HOUSING SECURITY	-ECONOMIC NHS 10 Year plan: 1. GP / dental access 2.  waiting lists hospital and community care 3. staff demoralised and demotivated 4. outcomes on major killers like cancer lag behind other countries. STRAGEIC AUTHORITIES - DEVOLUTION shift of wealth & power HEALTH INEQUALITIES inequity WHOLE GOVERNMENT APPROACH TO HEALTH ECONOMIC VALUE OF HEALTH low-quality jobs Local strategic response

See also -

Opinion: Failing to collect, analyse, and report ethnicity data in clinical research leads to healthcare inequalities. BMJ 2025; 390 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1457 (Published 14 July 2025)
Cite this as: BMJ 2025;390:r1457

 'hospital' : 'community' : 'analogue' : 'digital' : 'prevention' : 'sickness'

My source: https://x.com/TheKingsFund/status/1944678280461734226

Seeking UK Healthcare Workers: online pilot study on daily communications

C/o Olga Lainidi @LainidiO

Post Graduate Researcher and Teaching Fellow in Psychology @ University of Leeds

'I’m looking for UK Healthcare Workers to help me pilot an online study on daily communications in healthcare. Please fill in the expression of interest form if you want to find out more.'

Introduction to the study plans below from:

https://forms.office.com/e/5H84WqqTtT


UK Healthcare Staff - Daily Communications & Wellbeing at work

Thank you for your interest in this research study, which is part of a PhD project at the University of Leeds. The study explores how healthcare workers communicate about things that matter at work on a day-to-day basis, and how these decisions relate to their wellbeing. If you're a UK-based healthcare worker and would like to receive more information or take part in the study, please complete the short form below. This form helps us check eligibility and ensure we include a range of roles and experiences. It takes less than 2 minutes to complete. Completing this form does not commit you to participating - it simply lets us know you're interested and happy to be contacted. All information will be kept confidential and stored securely. Thank you for your time and interest!

The study has received ethical approval by the School of Psychology Ethics Committe, University of Leeds (2841 - 28/04/2025)

https://forms.office.com/e/5H84WqqTtT

My source:

https://x.com/LainidiO/status/1931414872840970470

I look f/w to learning of future findings and outputs.

World Happiness Report 2025

WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT 2025

. . . and looking ahead to WHR 2026 . . .

Prof Lord Richard Layard

Editor, World Happiness Report

In World Happiness Report 2024, we presented evidence of a concerning decline in the wellbeing of young people in Western industrialised countries.

Obviously, a child’s wellbeing matters for the same reason that any individual’s wellbeing matters. But wellbeing among children and adolescents is also critical since it is the best predictor of how happy said child will be in their subsequent life – with a higher predictive power than the qualifications which they might obtain.

There has been much debate about the reasons for such a downward trend, with many competing theories and policy recommendations. However, one explanation has captured public and political attention more than any other: social media.

Also in 2024, Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business, published The Anxious Generation, arguing that the decline in youth wellbeing is driven by a transition from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood. The book has been a best-seller and sparked heated debate, both in academia and the wider world.

As editors of the World Happiness Report, we have followed this debate closely, concerned that rigorous science was being overshadowed by shallow media narratives.

In World Happiness Report 2026, we see an opportunity to bring all sides of the debate together to establish the facts, clarify disagreements, and provide decision-makers with a balanced assessment of what we know, what we don’t know, and what should be done.

We’re encouraging researchers from across the world to submit chapter proposals focusing on the relationship between social media and subjective wellbeing before the deadline of Sunday 15 June. Full details are available on the World Happiness Report website.

My source: Email from info AT worldhappiness.report

Previously: 'happiness'