The Amelia Conference:
ARCA’s Annual Interdisciplinary Art Crime Conference

Conference Dates – June 20 – 22, 2025
Conference Sessions – Collegio Boccarini Conference Hall
Adjacent to the Museo Civico Archeologico e Pinacoteca Edilberto Rosa
Amelia, Italy

Registration will open in January 2025 via Eventbrite:

Held in the beautiful town of Amelia, Italy, the seat of ARCA’s summer-long Postgraduate Certificate Programmes in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection, the Association’s 15th annual Amelia Conference is scheduled for the weekend of June 20-22, 2025.

In keeping with our annual tradition, this year’s conference weekend will kick off with an opening themed icebreaker cocktail on Friday, June 20, 2025.  Held annually, this evening networking event gives all Amelia Conference attendees time to leisurely arrive to the city after flights, to check in to their lodgings, and to start their weekend off in an entertaining and relaxed social event atmosphere designed to allow everyone to get to know one another or to reconnect before the start of the conference’s busy weekend.  This Friday evening event will include heavy hors d’oeuvres and presents a chance for our attendees to engage with new colleagues as well as catch up with old prior to the serious discussions to be had during the weekend’s presentations at the conference venue.

At the heart of the Amelia Conference will be two days devoted to presentations on Saturday and Sunday, June 21-22, 2025, held in the Collegio Boccarini Conference Hall on topics of common concern in the field.

Each year ARCA’s annual Amelia Conference serves as an arena for intellectual and professional exchange and highlights the nonprofit’s mission to facilitate a critical appraisal of the need for protection of art and heritage worldwide. Over the course of this one weekend each summer, our art crime-focused event serves as a forum to explore the indispensable role of detection, crime prevention, and scholarly and criminal justice responses, at both the international and domestic level, in combatting all forms of crime related to art and the illicit trafficking of cultural property.

Geared towards international organisations, national enforcement agencies, scholars, cultural institutions, and private sector professionals in the art and antiquities protection fields, the Amelia Conference follows a long-established commitment by the Association to examine contemporary issues of common concern in an open, non-combative, multi-disciplinary format in order to promote greater awareness and understanding of the need for better protection of the world’s cultural patrimony.

Given the success of the Amelia Conference over its previous editions, it is important to recognise the growing interdisciplinary and international nature of this emerging field, the growing complexity of art and heritage crime, and the disciplines and subject matter experts who follow along and contribute within their areas of speciality.  With that in mind, this year’s conference will build upon topic-specific sessions designed to stimulate discussion and share learning on a series of topics of common concern. Some conference panels may feature more active panel debate about a session topic, or present various and/or contrasting perspectives about a topic.

Confirmed Presenters List Will be posted after the Call for Presenters concludes. 

Conference Attendee Profile:

The 2025 conference is open to attendees from different disciplines, practitioners, and policy- and decision-makers as well as anyone with an interest in the protection of art and the complexity of art crimes. Registration for the event will remain open until June 15, 2025 subject to space limitations.

Conference Registration Fees for 2025:
€170 for both days’ sessions for professionals, includes icebreaker cocktail.

€110 for both days’ sessions for university students providing proof of current enrolment in an academic program, includes icebreaker cocktail.

€90 for both days’ sessions for university students providing proof of current enrolment in an academic program.

All registration fees include entry to all conference panel sessions plus complimentary morning and afternoon refreshment breaks with coffee, juice, and light pastries on Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoon.   

FINAL NOTE
ARCA is a small civil society organisation.  Due to our extremely limited operational budget, all participants and presenters attending the Amelia Conference are responsible for their own registration fees, travel and accommodation expenses travelling to, and while in, Italy.