Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Human Rights Conference 2026 in Bogotá

Keynote speakers:

Prof. Matthias Mahlmann Universität Zürich

Prof. Christoph Bublitz Universität Hamburg

Prof. Sjors Ligthart Universiteit Utrecht & Tilburg

---

The Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Human Rights Conference, to be held mostly in English at the building H of the Universidad Externado de Colombia, will have invited participants (Professors, researchers, policy makers and also students short talks) from Colombia and abroad. This event will focus on two main areas (each one with a full day timeframe) which are:

• Fundamentals of human rights and new technologies: from history to the essential nucleus of protection.
  This area will focus on understanding the historical and legal basis of current human rights, as well as developing an understanding of the theories of protection of human rights. This is especially relevant as current debates in the human rights-technology domain focus on the basic fundamentals and contents of rights as freedom of thought, as well as their absolute v. relative nature, and the doctrine of the essential nucleus of rights, in the light of new technologies and applications.
• Neurorights, neurotechnology, and regulation in Latin America.
  This area focuses mainly on the debates over neurorights, which are proposals and initiatives to create new lists of rights. This is relevant to current debates, especially in Latin America, as regional organizations and national parliaments are moving towards new policies for the regulation of neuroscience and new technologies. Here, special attention will be paid to the questions of what type of regulations the region needs, as well as different alternatives in governance and policy work.

Final program to be published on the 10th of December 2025

Call for abstracts!

We invite graduate and postgraduate students, as well as researchers, to present at our conference with a short talk of 15 minutes + 5 minutes of Q&A. The topic has to be framed into one of the two proposed sections. Please consider that there is no funding available for travel bursaries nor expense reimbursements.

Talks in English are encouraged. In limited cases, a talk in Spanish can be accepted with slides in English.

• Abstract submission deadline: 20th of November 2025, 11:00pm (GMT-5)
• Notification of accepted abstracts: 5th of December 2025

To be considered, the applicant must submit an abstract of a maximum of 300 words via this Form:

Call for abstracts – Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Human Rights Conference 2026