The World Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE 2027) has opened its call for abstracts, with submissions due by 7 August 2026 ahead of the 15–19 August 2027 conference in Edmonton, Canada. That is according to the WCTE 2027 Conference Committee, which is inviting researchers, practitioners, designers and industry professionals to submit two-page extended abstracts across seven thematic streams covering structural design, fire performance, sustainability, mass timber architecture, manufacturing, artificial intelligence and timber bridges.
Authors selected through the peer-review process will be considered for either a 20-minute oral presentation or a printed A1 poster displayed across designated sessions at the Edmonton venue. With only a limited number of slots available for oral presentations, submissions not selected for an oral slot will be considered for poster presentation as part of the wider conference programme.
Peer review will assess submissions against scientific and technical quality, originality and innovation, relevance to the conference themes, clarity of presentation, and practical and research impact, according to the committee. “WCTE 2027 provides a global forum for the exchange of knowledge on timber engineering,” the committee said in opening the call.
The seven streams cover structural design, monitoring and rehabilitation; fire performance; architecture design and infrastructure; sustainability, resilience and environmental impact; manufacturing, product performance and construction innovation; technology, artificial intelligence and knowledge integration; and timber bridges. The committee has identified AI applications in the manufacturing and design of timber systems as a dedicated theme alongside seismic and wind performance, charring rates of timber materials, life-cycle assessment, robotics, building information modelling, and structural health monitoring.
Edmonton picks up the WCTE baton from Brisbane, where 960 delegates attended the 2025 edition of the conference across five days at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. Of those delegates, 250 were from Australia, with strong contingents from Japan (127), Canada (68), the United States (60), New Zealand (52) and Germany, as Wood Central reported when the conference wrapped in June.
Wood Central understands that the Edmonton call follows a Brisbane edition that featured more than 950 oral and poster presentations across its five-day run. It comes as the host rotation set by the WCTE secretariat, Jan Willem van de Kuilen, at the close of WCTE 2025 sends the conference to Edmonton in 2027 and on to Coimbra, Portugal, for WCTE 2029.
Please note: Authors have until 7 August 2026 to submit their two-page extended abstracts to the WCTE 2027 Conference Committee, with author notifications scheduled for November 2026 and full papers required by April 2027 ahead of the 15–19 August 2027 conference in Edmonton.
