The Association for Law, Property & Society (ALPS) will hold its next annual meeting in-person at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, from May 29th - 31st, 2025.


Mission Statement: ALPS is an open and welcoming international organization of scholars and teachers engaged in a wide range of interdisciplinary research covering all aspects of property law, policy, and theory, and the role property plays in social structures, human relationships, and ecology. We promote informed dialogue among diverse scholars at all stages of their careers from around the world and across disciplines through conferences, publications, workshops, and mentorship.


Meeting Agenda:

1) Field trips and other activities: The ALPS meeting dates include an optional pre-conference field trip on the afternoon of May 29th, likely followed by a welcome reception that evening. It is anticipated that the pre-conference field trip on the afternoon of May 29 will cover a range of historical and contemporary land use and development issues in central Sydney. This will include sites of significance to the Gadigal people and neighbouring clans of the Eora Nation, as well as critical perspectives on some of Sydney’s most iconic places (e.g. the Sydney Opera House, the Rocks) and a range of contemporary developments (e.g. Barangaroo). If there is sufficient participant interest, the conference organizers may also offer a full-day field trip (either before the conference on May 28 or after the conference on June 1) to include a national park and more indepth exploration of Indigenous land issues in Australia.

2) Academic portion: panels and plenary sessions: The academic portion of the conference will take place on May 30th – 31st , 2025, with concurrent panels and plenary sessions running on both days. Please follow the ALPS Annual Meeting webpage (https://alps-law.org/annual-meeting) for more information as the conference and associated meeting events are finalized, including links to register for the meeting.


Meeting Themes: For more than a decade, ALPS has fostered dialogue among diverse scholars from diverse disciplines around the world on all aspects of property, law, and society. ALPS annual meetings include participants representing numerous countries and working in common law, civil law, Indigenous laws, international law, transnational law, and mixed legal traditions. Presentation submissions on any subject related to property law and the practices that shape property norms and institutions are welcome. Possible organizing themes include, but are not limited to: land use planning, zoning, water law, environmental law, energy Association for Law, Property, & Society Annual Meeting University of New South Wales, Australia May 29th – 31st , 2025 law, mortgages and financing, land titles, legal issues related to housing and homelessness, real estate development, cultural property, historic and heritage preservation, property of Indigenous peoples, comparative perspectives on property law, race and gender issues in property, intellectual property rights, property theory, and takings law. ALPS maintains, at its core, a strong commitment to international and interdisciplinary diversity, and topics reflecting that commitment are encouraged.


Submissions Guidelines and Participation Options: ALPS welcomes presentations of projects at all stages of development, from recently published works to early-stage ideas. ALPS accepts both individual paper submissions and proposals for fully formed panels (usually 3 to 4 presenters, sometimes including films or multimedia outputs). In general, each presenter will be limited to one research paper presentation per conference, although some exceptions may be made for special discussion or roundtable groups, plenary panels, commentary roles, or other particularly unique thematic panels. After reviewing and accepting submissions, ALPS will thematically group the accepted papers and panels. Concurrent panels will be held on both the Friday and Saturday of the conference with each panel session lasting approximately 90 minutes and including both individual presentations (10-15 minutes) and time for questions (5-10 minutes, depending on the length of the presentation) from the audience.

All submissions should be entered through the ALPS Conference Proposal Submission Portal (https://alps-law.org/submissions). Within the Submission Portal, applicants will be asked to submit: (1) a presentation title, (2) a 250 word (maximum) abstract, (3) an email address for contact, (4) the scholar’s institutional affiliation, (5) a list of five keywords, (6) parallel information for coauthors, if any, including whether they will be co-presenting or should be listed as non-presenting coauthors, and (7) other conference-related information, including willingness to serve as moderator for a panel and likely interest in attending one or both field trips. If submitting a full panel, please submit an abstract for each paper and the accompanying information for each panelist, as appropriate, within the Submission Portal.

The deadline for submitting papers and panels is November 30, 2024. No late submissions will be accepted. Authors and panel proposers will be notified of the acceptance of their papers and panels by the end of January 2025 at the latest. **Please note that accepted abstracts will be included in a “long program” for participants and may be made publicly available. Please indicate upon submission of your abstract if you do not wish to have your abstract included and would instead prefer to have your presentation only identified by the title provided.


Registration: All meeting attendees must register, whether seeking to present a paper or not. Conference registration will open on the conference website by late January or early February and will close on March 31, 2025. More information will be provided in acceptance notifications. To ensure a place on the final conference program, all presenters must register before March 31, 2025. The registration portal will be available from the ALPS Annual Meeting webpage (https://alpslaw.org/annual-meeting). Further information about accommodations, travel planning, the field trip, welcome reception, and other events will also be provided on this page as it becomes available. Any questions regarding the conference should be directed to conference@alps-law.org.