The ANZ ACBS 2026 Conference, the annual conference of the Australia & New Zealand chapter of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, runs 23-25 November 2026 at the University of Auckland's Grafton Campus, with pre-conference ACT workshops on 21-22 November. It draws psychologists, therapists and researchers in contextual behavioural science and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy from across Australia and New Zealand.
The ANZ ACBS 2026 Conference comes to the University of Auckland's Grafton Campus from 23 to 25 November 2026, with two days of pre-conference intensive workshops running 21-22 November. The gathering is the annual conference of the Australia & New Zealand chapter of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, and it brings clinicians and researchers together around contextual behavioural science and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
The official listing times the main programme from 9:00am on Monday 23 November to 1:00pm on Wednesday 25 November (NZDT), with pre-conference workshops led by international facilitators Rikke Kjelgaard and Jamie and John Forsyth bookending the opening weekend.
The conference is organised by ANZ ACBS, the Australia & New Zealand chapter of the international Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS). The chapter runs the event annually and rotates it across host cities in the two countries; the 2025 edition was held at RMIT University's Melbourne City Campus, and the 2026 edition returns to New Zealand.
This is a behavioural-science and psychology congress rather than a strictly medical one. Its subject matter is contextual behavioural science and ACT, a form of evidence-based psychotherapy, so the delegate base skews toward psychologists, therapists, counsellors and academic researchers.
The programme is built for two overlapping audiences: practitioners who want to sharpen their clinical skills, and researchers presenting and discussing new work. The organiser frames it as a chance to engage with international CBS experts, take part in workshops, and build professional connections.
The confirmed pre-conference offering includes two-day intensive workshops: "ACT Like a Pro" with Rikke Kjelgaard, and "The Art of ACT" with Jamie and John Forsyth. The full three-day conference programme of keynotes, papers and panels had not been published in detail at the time of research.
The University of Auckland's Grafton Campus sits at 85 Park Road in Grafton, immediately adjacent to Auckland City Hospital and the Auckland Domain, a short distance south-east of the CBD. It is the university's health and medical sciences precinct, which makes it a fitting setting for a psychology and behavioural-science congress with lecture theatres and teaching spaces suited to a mixed workshop-and-paper format.
For delegates, Grafton is well connected: it is a few minutes from the city centre by bus or car, close to the Grafton train station, and within walking distance of Auckland Hospital. Accommodation options cluster in the nearby CBD and around the hospital and Newmarket, giving interstate and international attendees a range of choices within a short transfer of the campus. The late-November timing places the conference in early New Zealand summer.
A trans-Tasman professional association choosing Auckland for its flagship annual conference is a recurring win for New Zealand's business-events sector: it draws Australian and international delegates into the country for a multi-day academic programme plus pre-conference workshops, with associated accommodation, hospitality and social-programme spend. Hosting on a university health-sciences campus also underlines Auckland's standing as a venue for scientific and clinical congresses, the kind of rotating association conference that New Zealand competes for against Australian host cities year to year.
Cited links supporting this report.
A live, confirmed single-day corporate conference on 23 November 2026 at the Crowne Plaza Auckland, run by Conferenz Ltd (trading as Brightstar), with a full law-firm and payroll programme on New Zealand's employment leave / Holidays Act reform.
A two-day corporate energy conference run by global events company IQPC, taking place 24-25 November 2026 at the Crowne Plaza Auckland, with a roster of NZ energy-sector chief executives and a net-zero / grid-transition programme.
A two-day medical congress on 24-25 November 2026 at the Crowne Plaza Auckland, organised by Conferenz Ltd trading as Brightstar, targeting Health NZ leaders, GPs, pharmacists and specialist clinical teams.
A confirmed one-day MICE trade expo on 24 November 2026 (9am-4.30pm) at Auckland's Viaduct Events Centre, organised by Tourism Media Group Ltd and billed as the fourth New Zealand edition.
ICAIT 2026, the 18th International Conference on Advanced Infocomm Technology, runs 23-27 November 2026 at SO/ Auckland, hosted by Auckland University of Technology and sponsored by the IEEE Photonics Society. The official site confirms the Auckland edition, venue, programme and organiser.
A two-day organisational-psychology event at Massey University Albany, Auckland, on 19-20 November 2026: Day 1 is the IOP Practitioner Symposium, Day 2 the 15th ANZOPOB academic conference. Hosted by Massey's School of Psychology in partnership with the Institute of Organisational Psychology (NZ Psychological Society).