Events & Conferences

Twelve meetings between December 2026 and December 2027 have confirmed dates and name micro- or nanoplastics in their program, call or scope; for the treaty meeting, that is the negotiation's mandate. One is a treaty meeting open to government delegations only, ten are scientific conferences and one is a laboratory course. The formal treaty session INC-5.4 has only a planning window and is listed under unconfirmed.

The calendar starts early: the first abstract deadline, for SETAC Europe in Geneva, is 10 November 2026, one week after this list was checked¹. Five of the twelve close abstracts between 10 November 2026 and 25 January 2027 (our count from the organizers' pages).

How this list was built

The window runs from 1 December 2026 to 31 December 2027. An event is listed only if micro- or nanoplastics appear by name in its program, its call for abstracts or its published scope, and only if its dates appear on a page run by the organizer. Aggregator listings do not count. Every date was last checked on 3 November 2026.

Dates and places are provenance facts, not scientific findings, so they carry no A–E grade. Where it matters, an entry says how we read it: on the organizer's page, in an archived copy, or in the organizer's document read through a text reader because the site refuses automated requests (UNEP, AGU, ACS). A planning window without dates is never shown as a date range.

Negotiations and policy meetings

The treaty talks are listed because the UN resolution that launched them recognizes "that plastic pollution includes microplastics"². The one treaty meeting with confirmed dates in the window is the third informal in-person meeting of heads of delegation, 28–30 January 2027 at the United Nations Office at Nairobi. Regional meetings precede it on 25–27 January, according to UNEP's invitation of 16 October 2026^3,4.

Only government delegations take part, each with a head of delegation and up to five delegates; registration closes on 8 January 2027³. The Busan session (INC-5.1, 2024) adjourned with a Chair's Text as the starting point for further talks⁵, and the Geneva session (INC-5.2, August 2025) was adjourned because no consensus was reached⁶. Background is on the policy page.

• 2027-01-28 – 2027-01-30

  Third informal in-person meeting of Heads of Delegation to the INC on Plastic Pollution, after regional meetings on 25–27 January (negotiation, UNEP; government delegations only; invitation read through a text reader) ↗

  Nairobi, Kenya (United Nations Office at Nairobi)

  Deadline: 2027-01-08, 23:59 East Africa Time (delegate registration)

Scientific conferences

Ten conferences qualify. Four are large general meetings (AGU, ACS, EGU, SETAC Europe) where plastics appear as sessions or named track topics; six are smaller meetings where plastics are the main theme or a named theme.

At EGU27 in Vienna, nine sessions carry "plastic" in their title, among them AS3.15 on atmospheric micro- and nanoplastics, SSS7.1 on plastics in soils and OS4.13 on marine and estuarine plastic (our count across 23 program groups, 3 November 2026)⁷. EGU also accepts online participation⁸.

At ACS Spring 2027 in New Orleans, the Division of Analytical Chemistry runs a contributed symposium on micro- and nanoplastics in the environment; its abstract call closed on 28 September 2026, before this list was checked^9,10.

The AGU26 meeting in San Francisco runs 7–11 December 2026^11,12. Session EP023, on the multiscale fate of nano-, micro- and macroplastics in aquatic environments, is announced in its conveners' call on AGU's community site; its abstracts closed on 5 August 2026, and we did not inspect the final program¹³.

SETAC Europe names microplastics in the descriptions of two of its seven tracks, and its published session gallery includes session 1.05 on micro- and nanoplastics (in the part we could load on 3 November 2026)^14,15. The venue is Palexpo, near Geneva airport¹⁶. FILTCON27 has "Microplastics in Filtration and Nonwovens" as its featured theme, with abstracts due 25 November 2026¹⁷. The Nebraska summit takes abstracts until 25 January 2027¹⁸.

ICCE 2027 in Gdańsk lists "Emerging Pollutants & Microplastics" in its scope and takes abstracts until 15 February 2027^19,20. The ECI conference in Davos is devoted to engineered solutions for micro- and nanoplastics in water; oral abstracts close on 15 January 2027 and posters on 25 January^21,22. MICROM 2027 in Novi Sad had not opened abstract submission²³. MICROPLASTIC days returns to Ljubljana in autumn 2027 without a published deadline²⁴.

• 2026-12-07 – 2026-12-11

  AGU26 Annual Meeting, session EP023 on the fate of plastic in aquatic environments (conference, American Geophysical Union; session from the conveners' call) ↗

  San Francisco, USA (Moscone Center); recordings on demand

  Deadline: abstracts closed 2026-08-05; conference hotel booking closes 2026-11-19

• 2027-03-21 – 2027-03-25

  ACS Spring 2027, symposium on micro- and nanoplastics in the environment (conference, American Chemical Society; dates read in an archived copy of the organizer's page) ↗

  New Orleans, USA

  Deadline: abstracts closed 2026-09-28, before this list was checked; none further announced

• 2027-04-04 – 2027-04-09

  EGU General Assembly 2027, sessions including AS3.15 Atmospheric microplastics and nanoplastics (conference, European Geosciences Union) ↗

  Vienna, Austria (Austria Center Vienna) and online

  Deadline: 2027-01-12, 13:00 CET (abstracts)

• 2027-04-08 – 2027-04-09

  MICROM 2027, International Conference on Microplastics, Nanoplastics and Emerging Contaminants (conference, Educons University) ↗

  Novi Sad, Serbia

  Deadline: none announced (abstract submission not yet open)

• 2027-04-20 – 2027-04-22

  FILTCON27, featured theme Microplastics in Filtration and Nonwovens (conference, American Filtration and Separations Society) ↗

  Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

  Deadline: 2026-11-25 (abstracts)

• 2027-04-25 – 2027-04-29

  SETAC Europe 37th Annual Meeting (conference, SETAC) ↗

  Geneva, Switzerland (Palexpo)

  Deadline: 2026-11-10 (abstracts; year inferred, the page gives day and month only)

• 2027-05-09 – 2027-05-12

  Microplastics and Nanoplastics Summit: Bridging Science, Policy, and Action (conference, University of Nebraska–Lincoln) ↗

  Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

  Deadline: 2027-01-25 (abstracts); early-bird registration through February 2027

• 2027-06-06 – 2027-06-10

  ICCE 2027, International Conference on Chemistry and the Environment (conference, EuChemS Division of Chemistry and the Environment and University of Gdańsk) ↗

  Gdańsk, Poland

  Deadline: 2027-02-15 (abstracts)

• 2027-07-04 – 2027-07-08

  Micro-Nano Plastics (MNP) in Water: Engineered Solutions (conference, Engineering Conferences International) ↗

  Davos, Switzerland

  Deadline: 2027-01-15 (oral abstracts); 2027-01-25 (poster abstracts)

• 2027-09-28 – 2027-10-01

  MICROPLASTIC days 2027 (conference, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana) ↗

  Ljubljana, Slovenia

  Deadline: none announced

Micro- and nanoplastics events, December 2026 to December 2027

Data table

label	value	unit	end	deadline	deadline_abstracts	source	deadline_registration	deadline_oral	deadline_poster
AGU26, San Francisco	2026-12-07		2026-12-11	abstracts closed 2026-08-05	2026-08-05	S-238, S-248
INC heads of delegation, Nairobi	2027-01-28		2027-01-30	registration 2027-01-08 (delegations only)		S-249	2027-01-08
Birmingham MNP workshop	2027-02-01		2027-02-05	none announced		S-237
ACS Spring 2027, New Orleans	2027-03-21		2027-03-25	abstracts closed 2026-09-28	2026-09-28	S-232, S-233
EGU27, Vienna and online	2027-04-04		2027-04-09	abstracts 2027-01-12	2027-01-12	S-158, S-234
MICROM 2027, Novi Sad	2027-04-08		2027-04-09	none announced		S-235
FILTCON27, Raleigh	2027-04-20		2027-04-22	abstracts 2026-11-25	2026-11-25	S-236
SETAC Europe, Geneva	2027-04-25		2027-04-29	abstracts 2026-11-10	2026-11-10	S-152
MNP Summit, Lincoln	2027-05-09		2027-05-12	abstracts 2027-01-25	2027-01-25	S-155
ICCE 2027, Gdańsk	2027-06-06		2027-06-10	abstracts 2027-02-15	2027-02-15	S-239
ECI MNP in Water, Davos	2027-07-04		2027-07-08	oral abstracts 2027-01-15; poster abstracts 2027-01-25		S-154, S-240		2027-01-15	2027-01-25
MICROPLASTIC days, Ljubljana	2027-09-28		2027-10-01	none announced		S-243

Workshops, courses and webinars

Only one course in the window met the criteria, short of the two to four we aimed for. The University of Birmingham runs a five-day, hands-on short course on identifying and characterizing environmental micro- and nanoplastics, at a fee of £880; registration details were "coming soon"²⁵.

We found no webinar with a published date in the window on the ECHA events page; the NOAA Marine Debris Program events address returned "page not found" and the JRC events page blocked our check (3 November 2026). New announcements will appear on This Week.

• 2027-02-01 – 2027-02-05

  Environmental micro and nano-plastic identification and characterisation workshop 2027 (course, University of Birmingham) ↗

  Birmingham, United Kingdom

  Deadline: none announced (registration opening soon)

Excluded and unconfirmed

INC-5.4, the resumed fifth treaty session, is scheduled "within the period of 13 to 24 March 2027". UNEP says its duration is still to be confirmed and that the specific dates and venue will follow in a formal invitation^26,6. It stays out of the calendar until UNEP confirms the dates.

SETAC North America meets in Long Beach on 1–4 November 2027, but its page did not yet mention plastics²⁷. The 2027 meetings of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions (Panama City, 19–30 April 2027) discuss plastic waste, not micro- or nanoplastics by name²⁸.

Next edition not announced: MICRO, whose 2026 edition was in Cádiz²⁹; the University of New Mexico conference on microplastics and human health³⁰. The Kristineberg early-career workshop moved to November 2028³¹. A 2027 Geneva Summer School on microplastics appears only in third-party listings; the University of Geneva page blocked our check. Meetings listed only by conference aggregators were left out. For the studies these meetings build on, see Landmark Studies.