Share your ideas, research, experiences, and bold approaches at the Park People & World Urban Parks Congress in Montreal.
The Call for Proposals is now open for the Park People & World Urban Parks Congress: Urban Parks Shaping Our Future, taking place May 30–June 2, 2027, in Montreal, Canada.
Bringing together park leaders, practitioners, researchers, advocates, community voices, and changemakers from around the world, the Congress will create a space to exchange knowledge, explore new approaches, and strengthen the role of urban parks in shaping healthier, more connected, resilient, and thriving cities.
As communities around the world respond to increasingly complex social, environmental, and climate challenges, parks are becoming more essential than ever.
The question at the heart of the Congress is:
How can we lead, collaborate, invest, and act differently through parks to help shape the cities of the future?
We want to hear from you
The 2027 Congress is seeking practical examples, bold ideas, innovative research, lived experiences, and inspiring stories from around the world.
We want to learn from people and places testing new approaches, challenging conventional thinking, strengthening communities, and demonstrating what is possible when parks are recognized as essential urban infrastructure.
Whether you have a proven model, an emerging idea, new research, a powerful story, or an important question that the global parks community should be exploring, we invite you to contribute to the conversation.
Explore the four Congress themes
The Congress programme will be shaped around four broad and intentionally interconnected themes:
- Living Well: Healthy People
How parks can support people to live well and flourish, and how these benefits can be accessible to everyone. - Connected Communities: Belonging & Social Connection
How community and Indigenous leadership, diverse perspectives and knowledge, and inclusive approaches can create parks that better reflect and serve communities. - Resilient Cities: Parks as Essential Urban Infrastructure
How parks can contribute to more resilient cities while generating benefits across climate, health, mobility, biodiversity, social connection, and quality of life. - A Thriving Planet: Nature & Planetary Health
Exploring biodiversity, Indigenous stewardship and relationships with the Land, ecological connectivity, restoration, water, urban forests, nature-based solutions, and the role of urban parks in supporting planetary health.
Proposals may connect to one or more of these themes, reflecting the many ways parks intersect with the challenges and opportunities facing cities today.
Bring your experience to a global stage
The Park People & World Urban Parks Congress is an opportunity to share what is working, learn from different contexts, and explore how successful ideas can be adapted, strengthened, and scaled.
We are especially interested in contributions that can spark dialogue, offer practical learning, challenge established ways of thinking, or bring new perspectives into the global parks conversation.
Submit your proposal by December 4, 2026.
Help us bring more voices into the conversation
Know someone with an idea, project, experience, or perspective that should be part of the Congress?
Share the Call for Proposals with colleagues, partners, collaborators, and networks around the world. The strength of this Congress will come from the diversity of voices, experiences, and ideas brought together in Montreal.
We look forward to learning from you and to shaping the future of urban parks together.
The Park People & World Urban Parks Congress 2027 is generously supported by TD Bank Group.
