Property's Next Big Thing: Wicked Problems Take Centre Stage

29 Jun 2026 - 30 Jun 2026
09:00am - 06:00pm
$110–$190
RMIT University, School of Law Building 13, 379–405 Russell Street, Melbourne

The annual Property Law Academics Conference returns this year with a sharp edge and a theme that speaks directly to the pressures reshaping Australian law and policy: Property's Next Big Thing – Wicked Problems and the Limits of Property Law.

Across the country, property scholars are grappling with issues that refuse to stay in their lanes. Truth telling and native title, climate driven upheaval, housing precarity, AI generated assets, and the redesign of cities are no longer niche debates – they’re national conversations with real world consequences. This year’s conference brings those threads together, asking how property law can respond when the problems are messy, structural, and urgent.

Expect sessions that cut across disciplines and sectors:

How truth telling processes are reshaping native title and exposing the limits of settler colonial property frameworks
What AI, data governance, and digital assets mean for ownership and regulation
How climate change, natural disasters, and environmental protection are redrawing the map of property rights
The future of sustainable streets, cities, and housing
Land administration, tenure innovation, and the systems that hold everything together
Property’s role in inequality, vulnerability, and social disadvantage
New directions in teaching the next generation of property lawyers

The conference is known for its collegiality and its willingness to test ideas in a generous, intellectually serious environment. This year’s theme raises the stakes: it invites scholars, practitioners, and researchers, to think bigger, argue harder, and imagine what property law could become in a world that keeps shifting under our feet.

Abstract submissions are now open, with program details to follow.

Abstract submission (max 300 words excluding title, author(s) and affiliation) to vanessa.johnston@rmit.edu.au by 15 May 2026

If you want an early, inside view of where the field is heading – this is where the conversation starts.

Registration

One-day ($110) and two-day registration ($190) options are available for this in person event. Registrations close Sunday 14 June 2026.

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

Learn more about our commitment to Indigenous cultures

Property's Next Big Thing: Wicked Problems Take Centre Stage