The IAEVG International Conference 2026, themed "Navigating the Future," brings the global career-guidance sector's flagship congress to Auckland's NZICC on 25-27 November 2026, hosted in New Zealand by CATE.
The IAEVG International Conference 2026 runs 25-27 November 2026 at the New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC) in Auckland (Tāmaki Makaurau), bringing the flagship congress of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance to the South Pacific for the first time. The official conference site (iaevgconference.co.nz) confirms the theme "Navigating the Future," a nod to how Pacific ancestors traversed the ocean guided by the stars, and lists the event as open to career professionals across education, training, employment services and related sectors. Early-bird registration is open; keynote speakers and the full programme are still to be announced.
The conference is the international event of the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG), the global body for the career-guidance and counselling profession. The New Zealand edition is hosted by the Careers and Transition Education Association of New Zealand (CATE), per the official site and the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), which is the government partner for the event. The Host Organising Committee is co-chaired by Craig Dyason and Rachel Manirakiza, and the professional conference organiser is Event Dynamics. The Career Development Association of New Zealand (CDANZ) appears as a partner on the official site, not as the host.
The event targets career practitioners, researchers, educators and policymakers from education, vocational training and employment services worldwide. According to the official site the programme, themes and speaker line-up are still being finalised, with announcements promised in the months ahead, alongside sponsorship and exhibition opportunities. It is deliberately paired with the invitation-only ICCDPP International Symposium (International Centre for Career Development and Public Policy), which TEC confirms runs 22-24 November 2026 in Auckland immediately before the IAEVG conference, so that policy delegations and practitioners converge in the same week.
The NZICC is New Zealand's largest purpose-built convention centre, located in central Auckland and designed to host large international congresses, which makes it a natural fit for a multi-day event drawing international delegations. Accommodation guidance is published on a dedicated page of the official site, and the central-city location places delegates within walking distance of Auckland's CBD hotel inventory and close to Auckland Airport transport links — relevant context for an event expecting international arrivals across consecutive career-sector gatherings.
Securing an established international congress like the IAEVG conference is a notable win for Auckland's business-events sector: it lands a recurring global professional gathering — recent editions were held in Jyväskylä, Finland (2024, "Riding the Wave of Change") and Bratislava (2019) — in New Zealand for the first time. TEC frames the hosting as support for the country's National Careers System Strategy and a chance for New Zealand practitioners to contribute to and draw from global learning, while the back-to-back staging with the ICCDPP Symposium concentrates international delegate movement into Auckland across a single November week.
The closely linked ICCDPP International Symposium 2026 (22-24 November, Auckland) precedes this conference. Both sit within the broader calendar of international association conferences that New Zealand's convention sector competes to attract to the NZICC.
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