Affirming Humanity, Decency & Belonging in Polarised Times. What Next?

BLG UK 4 NATIONS & GLOBAL ANNUAL CONFERENCE

(In person in Bristol and ONLINE)

THURSDAY, 4 JUNE 2026

Affirming Humanity, Decency & Belonging During Polarised Times

Conference Description

'In an age where division is normalised and humanity is negotiated, the question is no longer what we stand for, but what we are prepared to defend and what we are willing to tolerate'

Dr Nadia Habashi

University of East London

In a time of deepening polarisation across the United Kingdom and globally, the need to affirm our shared humanity has rarely felt more urgent. Political division, racial hostility, global conflict, social fragmentation, and growing insecurity are shaping the lived experience of millions of people. For people of colour, migrants, and others pushed to the margins, these pressures are often especially acute. But the crisis of belonging is wider than that. It speaks to a deeper question about the kind of society we are becoming, who feels seen within it, and what it will take to build communities and institutions in which everyone can flourish.

The Black Leadership Group’s Annual Conference 2026, Affirming Humanity, Decency & Belonging During Polarised Times, will create an important space for reflection, courage, and action. Taking place on Thursday, 4th June 2026, the conference will bring together leaders, practitioners, educators, changemakers, allies, and communities to examine the social and political moment we are in – what now? and, crucially, to ask: what next? What must be defended, what must be rebuilt, and what must now be done to strengthen humanity, decency, and belonging in our workplaces, institutions, communities, and public life?

Against a backdrop of political shifts in the UK following the May local elections, widening tensions across Europe and the United States, and ongoing conflict and instability around the world, this conference will offer both scene-setting and direction. It will not simply name the troubles of the present moment. It will move the conversation forward. Through keynote addresses, panel conversations, lived-experience insight, and practical challenge, the conference will explore how we respond with clarity, moral courage, and purposeful leadership at a time when many feel unsettled, excluded, or under threat.

This will be a conference shaped not only by diagnosis, but by determination. It will ask how we resist the normalisation of division and dehumanisation. It will examine how belonging can be intentionally built rather than casually spoken of. It will consider how leaders and institutions can act with greater integrity and accountability. And it will encourage participants to think seriously about the contribution each of us can make to a society in which dignity is protected, difference is respected, and our common humanity is affirmed.

Through a compelling blend of keynote contributions, provocation, dialogue, and calls to action, the conference will:

• set the context for the current national and global moment, situating recent electoral shifts within broader changes in political power, public discourse and institutional direction

• examine how lived experience is often managed, marginalised or instrumentalised by the state and institutions, and what it would mean to treat it as evidence that calls for accountability rather than as stories that can be heard, absorbed and then set aside

• examine the impact of polarisation on belonging, equity, leadership, and public life

• explore what humane, decent, and courageous leadership requires now

• identify practical actions for individuals, organisations, and sectors committed to building a more just and cohesive society

• facilitate progressive transnational alliances that offer a positive alternative to the growing global shift towards exclusionary politics, and resist the hate, division and polarisation which now dominates public discourse

• strengthen resolve, connection, and shared purpose for the work ahead.

At its heart, this conference is a call to resist despair, refuse indifference, and choose responsibility. It is an invitation to come together not only to understand the times, but to help shape what comes next.

Who should attend?
This conference is for leaders, educators, employers, policymakers, community voices, allies, and changemakers who want to understand the current moment and contribute to practical action that strengthens humanity, decency, belonging, and ethnic equity.

The conference will share simultaneously from Bristol and virtually, UK-wide and globally, keynote addresses, roundtable discussions and rich, face-to-face conversations before re-uniting for summaries and calls to action.

Bristol:
Venue address and info
Programme coming soon.

Full venue address: Jisc, 4 Portwall Lane, Bristol, BS1 6NB
Closest train station:
Bristol Temple Meads (about a 10-minute walk)
Further information about closest train station and the coach station is on our website here, so you could use some of this wording - Contact us - Jisc

Bristol airport:

Bristol airport is slightly out of the City Centre, so anyone flying would need to get a bus or taxi to Bristol City Centre

Car parking:
We don’t have parking for guests on site, but the closest public car parks include:
Portwall Lane car park (opposite our office) - Portwall Lane long stay car park

Redcliffe parade car park (5 minute walk but much smaller) - Redcliffe Parade long stay car park

Hotels within walking distance:

The Bristol – approx. 8-minute walk

Doubletree by Hilton Bristol City Centre – approx. 6-minute walk

And on-line

Info: Conference Lobby

Info: Participants

Info: Co-chair BLG Wales, Vice Principal, Cardiff and Vale College (CAVC)

Info: Jisc - UK Managing Director Further Education and Skills; Executive Director – Tertiary Leadership and Transformation

Info: Beyond belonging: Truth, Power and What We Are Prepared to Defend. Dr Nadia Habashi, PhD PG Cert (Research Methods) BA (Hons) FRSA FHEA, Criminology, Justice and Policing, Senior Lecturer, University of East London

Info: Participants

Info: Q & A from UK and global audiences

Info: England:
Appreciative Inquiry into the Lived Experiences of Ethnic Minority Students at the University of Exeter

Nicola Sinclair, Associate Director Access and Participation; Director (Practice) Centre for Social Mobility, University of Exeter

Info: TBC

Info: BridgeWork Project. Black Leadership Group.

Info: A Young Person’s Perspective on Anti-Racism in Contemporary Times. Joshua Romain. Student, journalist and presenter.

Info: Global: Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children - Mayor of London’s Greater London Authority WIN Design Lab

Info: Founder Director, Join Her Network CIC, Co-chair BLG Northern Ireland

Info: Speaker Panel Led by Conference Chair

Info: Announcements & Appreciation

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