The International Conference on Intercultural Collaboration (ICIC) was held in 2007 and in 2009 as the International Workshop on Intercultural Collaboration (IWIC). Because of the success of these workshops and the increasing interest in intercultural collaboration, its status was elevated to a conference for 2010.

The main theme of this conference is intercultural collaboration, from both technical and socio-cultural perspectives. Topics will includecollaboration support (such as natural language processing, Web, and Internet technologies), social psychological analyses of intercultural interaction, and case studies from activists working to increase mutual understanding in our multicultural world.

This conference explores the nature of intercultural collaboration and ways to improve intercultural collaboration processes and outcomes. especially improvements enabled or facilitated by technology. The Conference emphasizes linkages and connections between cultures (not comparative or cross-cultural analysis). "Culture" is broadly construed to include national cultures but also subcultures based on gender, religion, poliltical action, and so on. ICIC 2012 is a continuation of the former International Workshop on Intercultural Collaboration (IWIC) series, with this being the fourth conference.

In practice, information and communication technologies have enabled people across cultures to interact with each other personally and through mass media, in ways thought impossible only a few decades ago. Such uses of technology have increased the pace of intercultural exposure, but not necessarily intercultural collaboration. Research about intercultural collaboration has evolved in several different disciplines. The divergent disciplinary studies have helped us understand some aspects of this interaction, but to match the pace of change in the environment we need to bring these fields together and create more synergistic understanding and application. This conference integrates the socio-cultural and socio-technical perspectives, with the objective of creating multidisciplinary dialogue and progress in this important field.

General topics include collaboration support (such as natural language processing, Web, and Internet technologies), social scientific analyses of intercultural interaction in situations in which technology plays a role, and case studies that increase mutual understanding and learning in our technologically-supported multicultural world. Submissions are not required to be multidisciplinary themselves, but they should be able to contribute to a multidisciplinary dialogue. During the conference, papers will be grouped and discussions will be facilitated in a way that encourages this dialogue. It is strongly recommended that submissions include a paragraph on how the paper's focus is related to or can benefit from the perspective of other disciplines related to technology-enabled or facilitated intercultural collaboration.

Examples of relevant topics include but are not limited to:
Conceptual frameworks, methods, and measures to study intercultural collaboration and/or learning, especially which include some role for information or communications technology
Field studies of intercultural collaboration in global organizations and/or in local communities
Intercultural issues in offshore / global businesses
Laboratory studies of intercultural collaboration and technology use
Cultural differences in collaboration styles and technology use
Case studies of intercultural collaboration enabled or facilitated by technology
Computer supported intercultural collaboration
Internet, web, ubiquitous, and/or ambient technologies for intercultural collaboration and learning
The role of language, language proficiency, and language resources in intercultural collaboration, especially information and communications technology implications
Multilingual communication and communication technologies
Interoperability of language resources
Usability of technologies, including language resources, for intercultural collaboration
Issues of collaboration in development in multicultural environments
Issues of collaboration in e-governance in multicultural environments
Issues of collaboration in e-learning in multicultural environments
Issues of collaboration in digital gaming and entertainment in multicultural environments
Issues of collaboration in healthcare in multicultural environments

Submissions will be considered for archival papers, to be published in the ACM Digital Library, and for non-archival papers, panels, demonstrations, and posters. Paper authors can choose non-archival publication.