[Commlist] CFP for the Digital Legacy Conference and Death Online Research Symposium 2027

*CFP for the Digital Legacy Conference and Death Online Research 
Symposium 2027*

Join us for the Digital Death in Context and Practice: Care, Legacy, 
Culture and Society.

The Digital Legacy Conference (DLC) and the Death Online Research 
Symposium (DORS) will come together in Birmingham on the 27-28 May 2027. 
Through a new collaboration and in partnership with University of 
Birmingham, the conference will explore how digital technologies are 
reshaping death, dying, bereavement, memory, legacy and relationships 
with the dead.

The Death Online Research Network was established in 2013 to foster an 
international and cross-disciplinary research environment concerned with 
death in an increasingly digital society. DORS has since developed into 
an international forum for research on digital death across disciplines 
and methodological traditions. The Digital Legacy Association has 
supported professionals and the general public in areas relating to 
digital assets and digital legacy since 2015. Their Digital Legacy 
Conference brings a complementary professional and public-facing 
perspective, connecting research with practice across end-of-life care, 
bereavement, law, policy, technology, digital legacy and digital estate 
planning.

The 2027 collaboration deliberately brings these two communities 
together while retaining each community's distinctive identity. DORS 
will continue to provide a space for rigorous academic research and 
interdisciplinary exchange, while DLC will foreground professional 
practice, policy, care, public engagement and the practical consequences 
of living and dying in a digital society. The combined programme will 
create opportunities for dialogue across these communities, including 
dedicated academic and practice-oriented sessions and, where 
appropriate, mixed panels that bring different perspectives into 
conversation.
Conference theme: Digital Death in Context and Practice

Digital technologies are no longer simply an additional environment in 
which death and mourning take place. They increasingly shape the social, 
cultural, legal, professional and material contexts in which people 
prepare for death, experience bereavement, remember the dead and manage 
the digital traces, assets and identities that remain.
We therefore invite contributions that examine both the contexts through 
which digital death acquires meaning and the practices through which 
individuals, communities, professionals, institutions and technologies 
respond to it.

We particularly welcome contributions that cross disciplinary or 
professional boundaries and create dialogue between research, policy and 
practice.

*Submission deadline: 27 November 2026*
Notification of decisions: 18 December 2026

Themes:

We invite proposals addressing, without being restricted to:

  * online mortality and post-mortem digital lives
  * electronic inheritances, virtual remains, digital assets, and online
    estates
  * automated technologies, autonomous systems, and end-of-life care
    environments
  * virtual preservation and digital resurrection technologies
  * bereavement, mourning expressions, and ongoing connections in online
    spaces
  * networked commemoration spaces and virtual cemeteries
  * collective grieving practices and digital mourning networks
  * intersections connecting physical and virtual bereavement customs
  * advance planning and preparations concerning a digital death
  * inheritance arrangements, succession legalities, and fiduciary
    responsibilities
  * jurisprudential, governance, and policy frameworks regarding
    post-mortem data
  * industry benchmarks and professional practice concerning digital
    remain management
  * hospice support, medical care, social work, and grief guidance
  * faith traditions, ceremonies, and electronic mortality
  * sociocultural and historical insights on mortality in technological 
eras
  * technological accessibility, inclusion, and underrepresented voices
  * memorial service innovations and webcasting funerals
  * synthetic environments, extended reality, and simulated spaces
  * ethical technology creation, system design, and provider accountability
  * methodological approaches and hurdles when studying online death
  * evolving practitioner roles within increasingly tech-mediated
    end-of-life settings
  * Submissions outside these focus areas are equally welcomed provided
    they engage the central dialogue between death, digital
    technologies, care, legacy, society and culture.



Types of contribution

Reflecting the collaborative character of DLC × DORS, we welcome several 
forms of submission:

*Academic papers*
Please submit:
title
abstract of up to 250 words
author name(s), affiliation(s) and contact details
a short biography up to 100 words of each presenting author
*
*
*Practice and policy contributions*
We particularly welcome contributions from practitioners, policymakers, 
professional organisations, charities, healthcare and bereavement 
professionals, legal professionals, technologists and others working 
directly with issues of digital death and digital legacy.

These contributions might present:
an emerging professional challenge
a case study or example of practice
policy or regulatory developments
professional guidance or standards
service or technology design
lessons from implementation
an issue on which dialogue with researchers would be particularly valuable
Please submit a proposal of up to 250 words, explaining the issue, 
experience or intervention you would like to share and its relevance to 
the conference theme.

*Panels*
We welcome proposals for complete panels of up to four contributions. 
Panels may be wholly academic, wholly practice/policy focused, or 
deliberately combine academic and professional perspectives.
Panel proposals should include:
a panel title;
an overall description of up to 250 words
individual abstracts of up to 250 words each
names, affiliations, contact details and a short biography (up to 100 
words) for all contributors and the proposed chair
*
*
*Alternative and interactive formats*
We also welcome proposals for workshops, roundtables, facilitated 
discussions or other formats that encourage dialogue across academic and 
professional communities. Please explain the proposed format, 
participants and intended outcomes in up to 250 words.

Building the programme:
Submissions may identify themselves primarily with DORS/research, 
DLC/practice and policy, or both. This will help the organisers develop 
a programme that preserves the character of both events while creating 
meaningful points of overlap.

The organising committee may group individual submissions into thematic 
panels. Where appropriate, we may also develop mixed academic–practice 
panels in order to bring complementary perspectives into dialogue.

We particularly encourage submissions from doctoral researchers, 
early-career researchers and professionals at earlier stages of their 
careers, as well as contributions from disciplines, communities and 
professional settings that have historically been less visible in 
digital death research.


*Registration and conference dates*

Notification of decisions: 18 December 2026
Registration: January–March 2027
Conference: 27–28 May 2027
Venue: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston Park Hotel, Birmingham, UK
Registration information, fees and accommodation details will be 
published separately.
The conference is planned as an on-site event only. It will not be 
live-streamed.

*About the collaboration*
The 2027 conference represents the first collaborative edition bringing 
together the Digital Legacy Conference and Death Online Research Symposium.
Rather than merging the two events into a single model, the programme 
will retain their complementary strengths: DORS as an international 
interdisciplinary research forum and DLC as a space connecting research 
with professional practice, policy, care and public engagement.
Our ambition is to create sustained dialogue between those who study 
digital death and those who encounter its consequences in professional 
and everyday life, and, in doing so, to develop new ways of thinking 
together about care, legacy, society and culture in an increasingly 
digital experience of death.
*
*
*About the host*
The conference will be hosted at the Birmingham Law School, University 
of Birmingham, a leading Russell Group university with established 
strengths across law, artificial intelligence, digital technologies, 
health, ethics and interdisciplinary research.

The Birmingham co-host, Dr Edina Harbinja, Associate Professor of Law at 
Birmingham Law School, is an internationally leading scholar of digital 
death, digital assets, post-mortem privacy, and AI-mediated afterlives, 
and has co-led major European work on the succession of digital assets, 
data, and other digital remains.

For questions about submissions or the conference, please contact Dr 
Edina Harbinja at (e.harbinja /at/ bham.ac.uk) <mailto:(e.harbinja /at/ bham.ac.uk)>

More information on the conference website: 
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/call-for-papers-panels-and-practicepolicy-contributions 
<https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/call-for-papers-panels-and-practicepolicy-contributions>





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