Co-creating the future of audio description. Academia, industry and society in technology-mediated worlds

The ARSAD community will meet again in April 2027, twenty years after its first conference in 2007, to discuss audio description research and practice. Every two years a welcoming community of researchers, industry representatives, trainers, trainees, users, practitioners, regulators, broadcasters, policy makers, accessibility advocates, cultural managers, and anyone interested in audio description (AD) meet to exchange knowledge and experiences.

ARSAD, organised by TransMedia Catalonia research group at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, provides an international forum to explore cutting-edge research, emerging technologies, professional practices and user perspectives. For this ARSAD we want to keep exploring the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence but also approach how virtual worlds are creating new spaces where accessibility needs to be considered from the beginning. We have invited Dr Anita Lamprecht, to discuss this topic in her keynote talk.

We would also like to strengthen academy-industry-society collaboration, through a dedicated panel chaired by the AccessCat network in which businesses, user representatives and research groups come together to discuss multidirectional collaboration processes. The co-creation of future research endeavours in audio description is critical to enhance industry adoption and social impact.

We invite all of you to submit abstracts for presentations that address a wide array of themes which include but are not limited to:

  • AD across the globe
  • AD business models and workflows
  • AD delivery: prosody and voicing
  • AD in minority languages
  • AD training, and didactic AD
  • AD translation
  • Audio introductions, touch tours, audio subtitling
  • Audio subtitling and AD-related access services
  • Blockchain and copyright
  • Co-creation and participatory approaches
  • Creativity and AD
  • Easy-to-understand language and AD
  • Green and sustainable AD
  • Historical approaches to AD
  • Immersive environments and virtual worlds
  • Industry-academia collaborations
  • Knowledge transfer and social impact
  • Multilingualism
  • Quality assessment and evaluation models
  • Standardisation and policy-making
  • Technologies in audio description
  • User involvement and ethical aspects
  • User-generated audio descriptions

We welcome academic presentations, industry contributions, and user perspectives, and we favour joint initiatives.

Our aim is to generate a lively discussion. This is why presentations will be limited to 15 minutes and they will be included in a panel session where ample time for discussion will be allotted. Shorter 10-minute presentations can also be accepted for work in progress.

Please send your proposal through the submission form and plan your proposal so that it fits your selected time.

Important deadlines:

  • Opening of submission process: 23 March 2026.
  • End of submission process: 6 September 2026.
  • Notification of rejection/acceptance: 30 October 2026.

Registration will open on 30 October 2026.