Leather Conservation for Today, 30th and 31st October 2025. Call for abstracts for papers EXTENDED

Call for Abstracts 

We are pleased to announce that the Call for Abstracts is now open for our next Interim Meeting: ICOM CC Leather and Related Materials Group 13th Interim Meeting: Leather Conservation for Today 

To be held at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK on October 30 and 31, 2025. The conference will have a hybrid format, with options for both in-person and remote attendance. In-person presentations will be prioritised. 

The theme of the conference is “Leather Conservation for Today.” With this topic, we aim to explore key issues facing our specialism today, exploring new and innovative treatments, techniques and perspectives across the wide category of leather and skin materials. 

We are hoping for contributions representing diverse areas of our specialism, including conservation, new perspectives on the impact of old/previous treatments, materials, analytical techniques, and/or (art-)historical aspects. 

We are particularly interested in further consideration and study of 19th, 20th and 21st century leather and leather objects, as well as treatments that employ new materials or innovative techniques, such as mineral-tanned leather, leather with synthetic coatings, modern and contemporary objects involving leather, use of sulphur-free leather or other modern skin materials as a repair material, or any innovation in treatment, approach and contextual understanding. 

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers and for posters. For either format, please submit an abstract of a maximum of 500 words. Abstracts should be in English and must include a title and author name(s), institutional affiliation(s), and contact information (phone number and email address). Word document is the preferred format. 

Abstracts must be submitted by Monday, March 31, 2025, to Rosie Bolton at rosie@leatherconservation.org. They will be peer reviewed by the working group coordinator and assistant coordinators, and authors of selected papers and posters will be notified on April 7, 2025. A publication will follow the meeting.

PLEASE NOTE that this open call runs concurrently with the Call for Abstracts for the 21st ICOM-CC Triennial Conference, and abstracts cannot be submitted to both events. 

If you are unfamiliar with the format of each event, or unsure about which event would be most suitable for your specific submission, please see details below or contact rosie@leatherconservation.org to discuss. The 21st ICOM-CC Triennial Conference is a large, multi-faceted event taking place from the 14th-18th September 2026 in Oslo featuring a broad programme of events and the opportunity for presentations from all 21 ICOM-CC working groups. There is expected to be approximately 160 presentations in total, which will be selected proportionally by group membership. Please note that as Leather and Related Materials is one of the smaller working groups, there are usually less than 5 presentations assigned to our working group, meaning it can be competitive to secure a spot and spaces cannot be guaranteed. It may be worth considering how your presentation aligns with the conference theme of Cultural Connections in Conservation, or considering key questions to be explored during the conference:
• How can conservation establish new (and renew existing) professional connections to address global challenges? 
• How can conservation navigate temporal connections between the past, present, and future understandings, and uses of material culture? 
• How can conservation help advocate for diversity and cross-cultural communication? 
• How can conservation help to bridge inter-generational cultural divides? 

The 13th ICOM-CC Leather and Related Materials Working Group Interim Meeting will be a hybrid event, held at DeMontfort University in Leicester, UK, with presentations and events scheduled to take place over the course of Thursday 30th and Friday 31st October, accompanied by/including a number of optional leather themed technical visits scheduled across a diverse range of locations throughout central England on Wednesday 29th October (transport provided). 

This event is entirely based around exploring the conservation and preservation of leather and its related materials (parchment, gut skins etc), with presentations taking place across the 30th and 31st meaning there is capacity to focus on the topic and explore its nuance in depth. The theme of the Interim Meeting is Leather Conservation for Today, allowing a focus on contemporary approaches to conservation, the development of new repair techniques or material applications, or meditation on big issues currently facing our specialism - as well as opening up conversation around under-researched modern leathers such as those tanned with mineral or synthetic tannages, or with polymer surface finishes, and, of course, ongoing discussions around acid deterioration/red rot and its treatment. 

Both events are hugely vital to the development of our field and have their own important role to play in the distribution of research and knowledge. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss further or require any more advice on selecting which event to submit to.