The 8th International Conference on Adoption Research (ICAR-8) will take place on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota on July 8-12th 2024. ICAR was first organized in Minneapolis in the summer of 1999 by Dr. Hal Grotevant, then Chair of Family Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota. Six subsequent meetings were held in Norwich, Leiden, Bilbao, Auckland, Montreal, and Milan. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, ICAR8 returns to Minneapolis as a premier event for attendees from the Global South and Global North who are devoted to ensuring permanent, nurturing family care for every child.

The overall theme of ICAR-8 is Ensuring a safe and permanent family for all children: the global response.  Each day has a theme for the plenary sessions.

·      July 8: Welcome and Keynote ‘Family-centered social welfare: a global imperative’

·      July 9: Understanding what’s lost when a child is deprived of permanent family care.

·      July 10: Responding to the needs of children without permanent family care.

·      July 11: Ensuring permanence through evidence-based practice.

·      July 12: Lifelong issues in adoption: reframing the discourse through lived experience.

The schedule, speakers and titles for these plenary talks can be found on the ICAR-8 registration website. In addition to the plenary sessions, we will have research and educational presentations chosen from abstracts submitted by ICAR-8 attendees.  

Friday the 12th is a special day for the conference. The theme for the entire day is Lifelong issues in adoption: reframing the discourse through lived experience.  All speakers will be adopted individuals, and we are moving the conference to Northrop Auditorium, to permit participation of the large number of adoptees and their families and friends in our community. The speakers for Friday are listed in the program on our registration website.

Please visit the ICAR website for more details on the conference. The ICAR registration website has information on the program and continuing education credits. A discounted Early-Bird registration rate is offered through March 31, 2024. Full conference registration includes the Opening Ceremony on July 8th, lunch and breaks throughout the conference, the 25th Anniversary Celebration on Wednesday evening, July 10th and the Friday, July 12th event at Northrop Auditorium. If your time is limited, daily registration is available on July 9-11 and tickets for the program at Northrop Auditorium will be offered, beginning this spring, through Northrop Auditorium ticketing.

For a quarter century ICAR has brought together a group of passionate individuals who are devoted to ensuring that every child has a safe, permanent family. We invite you to join us in Minneapolis in July of 2024 when investigators and practitioners from around the world will once again convene to share information and experiences, develop and renew professional relationships, and conceive new research projects on the full spectrum of issues that impact children in need of permanent families worldwide.