Conference theme SimPro 2026

Today, the advantages of simulation for developing the skills necessary for effective professional work and promoting safety are broadly acknowledged. While much effort has been devoted to studying the effects of simulation interventions, often assumed to cause measurable learning outcomes, the training situation itself is frequently overlooked. As a result, simulation is often treated as a “black box,” with limited attention paid to the actual processes through which learning unfolds and the conditions that enable the development of professional knowledge.

The SimPro conference aims to “open the black box” of simulation by directing analytical attention to what takes place during training and post-simulation reflection. Rather than focusing solely on outcomes, the conference invites inquiry into the dynamics of interaction, collaboration, and meaning-making that occur in and around simulation activities. A central ambition is to bring together research from a range of professional domains, including but not limited to healthcare, maritime operations, firefighting, aviation, and teacher training, to foster cross-disciplinary dialogue and mutual learning.

Although simulation technologies are widely shared across these fields, the cultures of simulation, that is, how simulations are understood, designed, enacted, and made sense of, can differ markedly across professions, institutions, and national contexts. The SimPro conference invites contributions that explore simulation as a culturally and socially situated practice. SimPro aims to foreground how professional learning is shaped by local norms, institutional traditions, disciplinary knowledge, material arrangements, and collaborative routines. By examining and comparing how different communities of practice engage with simulation, the conference seeks to highlight both shared challenges and context-specific variations in how professional competence is cultivated through simulated training.

The theme for SimPro2026, “Collaboration in Simulation”, invites researchers to explore how professional learning is shaped in and through interaction. We are particularly interested in how knowledge, skills, responsibilities, and perspectives are coordinated across different roles and participants during simulation-based activities. This includes the collaborative organization of tasks during training, as well as the ways in which reflection, feedback, and institutional framings support or constrain joint meaning-making. Simulation is not only a pedagogical tool; it is also a setting in which professional roles and ways of knowing are negotiated and enacted.