Dear Members of the SACP,

I email you with a follow up about our possible hosts for the 2026 annual SACP conference. We recently solicited proposals for hosts within Asia for this event, and we have received two very generous offers. These offers come to us from Nanchang University (Jiangxi Province, southern China) and Manipal Academy of Higher Education (Karnataka, south India).

The timing of my email to you all concerns our upcoming Business Meeting on July 10^th at next week’s SACP conference at Leiden University (Netherlands). We will have time to discuss further these proposals at the meeting, and our Board will take very seriously your recommendations, concerns, and questions. Based largely on this discussion, the Board will make the final decision for which host to choose.

If you cannot attend the Business Meeting in person but would like your views to be taken into account, then please email me prior to the start of our conference on July 9^th. Shortly after the conference ends, the SACP Board will then make a final decision about our 2026 host, and will begin more serious discussions with our candidate hosts for 2027 (hopefully in the Americas). We will also discuss the theme for the 2026 conference at the upcoming Business Meeting.

Included in this email are 3 files:

(1) the list of questions that we have sent each proposed host (with these questions based upon criteria that we have in mind in selecting our conference location)

(2) the replies from the Nanchang University (China) host to our information-seeking questions

(3) the replies from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (India) host to our information-seeking questions.

My best wishes,

Geoff Ashton
President, SACP 2025-2026
Professor of Philosophy, University of San Francisco

Criteria & List of questions for Proposed Conference Hosts

Offer from Manipal Academy of Higher Education, in Karnataka, India (South)

Offer from Nanchang University (China)