Global Challenges and Local Innovations in Care

The theme, Global Challenges and Local Innovations in Care, reflects the growing internationalisation of care research and the need to engage with diverse care models, policy responses, and social realities across different contexts.

Care systems around the world are facing urgent and interconnected challenges: population ageing, declining birth rates, changing family structures, care worker shortages, technological disruption, and deepening inequalities. At the same time, societies are experimenting with new ways of organising and delivering care—through digital innovation, community-based initiatives, gender-equal parenting policies, and inclusive support for disabled people.

This theme invites critical, comparative, and interdisciplinary reflections on how care is being challenged, transformed, and reimagined across national, regional, and cultural borders. It provides space to showcase local responses to global pressures and to rethink how care research can move beyond Eurocentric perspectives to engage with diverse welfare imaginaries.

Key dimensions of the theme include:

• Global Challenges: How do transnational trends—such as demographic change, migration, climate crises, and technological advancement—shape care needs, expectations, and systems across different welfare regimes?
• Local Innovations: What creative strategies have emerged at the local or national level to address care gaps? How are policies and practices adapted to specific cultural, institutional, or community contexts, particularly in East Asian societies?
• Cross-Border Perspectives: How can comparative research, international collaboration, and cross-cultural dialogue deepen our understanding of care policy, provision, and ethics?

The conference especially welcomes contributions on:

• Childcare models that promote gender equity, early childhood development, and family support
• Disability support systems, including rights-based and person-directed innovations
• Care for older adults and long-term support, including informal care, migrant care work, and aging in place
• Care workforce dynamics, including professionalisation, migration, precarity, and automation
• Technological transformations, such as the integration of AI into care and their ethical and political implications
• Community-based and relational care practices that challenge marketised or institutional approaches

By focusing on Global Challenges and Local Innovations, the 2027 Transforming Care Conference aims to broaden the horizons of care research and practice—bridging regions, disciplines, and sectors to address the pressing question: how can we build inclusive, sustainable, and just care systems in a rapidly changing world?