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| 25 Aug 2026 | |
| Written by Gaby Vita | |
| Events News |
| Jie Han | Ahmed Hamza Mridakh |
The 3rd Annual International Geotechnical Innovation Conference (IGIC 2026) will bring the international geotechnical community together in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from October 14–15, 2026, at the Fairmont Riyadh.
Under the theme “Engineering the Ground Beneath MENA’s Mega Projects,” IGIC 2026 will focus on the geotechnical challenges, technologies, and engineering solutions supporting some of the most ambitious infrastructure, urban development, mining, and giga-projects underway across Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
The conference is designed to connect project owners, geotechnical contractors, consultants, engineers, researchers, technology providers, machinery and equipment suppliers, government organizations, and academia, creating a platform for technical knowledge exchange alongside practical discussion of project delivery.
Infrastructure development across the MENA region is taking place on an extraordinary scale, but many projects must contend with demanding subsurface conditions.
These include hard and fractured rock, karst formations, sabkha and weak soils, high and variable groundwater pressures, geohazards, and extreme climatic conditions. At the same time, projects are being delivered against increasingly ambitious schedules and performance requirements.
IGIC 2026 will examine how geotechnical engineering can help bridge the gap between ambitious design and the realities encountered below ground.
Discussions will consider challenges ranging from tunneling through complex geological conditions and stabilizing difficult ground to managing geohazards, constructing resilient foundations, improving soils, and applying new digital technologies to better understand and monitor ground behavior.
A key objective of the conference is to support the delivery of MENA’s mega and giga-projects by connecting engineering design with practical on-site execution.
The 2026 technical program will explore a broad range of subjects affecting modern geotechnical engineering and major infrastructure delivery.
Sessions will examine how engineers can create buildable ground across some of MENA’s most challenging terrains, including:
With major underground infrastructure programs progressing across the region, IGIC will explore the engineering of resilient underground infrastructure in complex ground conditions.
Topics include:
Saudi Arabia’s mega and giga-projects are creating significant new challenges for rock engineering.
The conference will examine:
Managing geological and geotechnical uncertainty will be another major focus.
Topics will include:
Reflecting the expansion of Saudi Arabia’s mining sector, IGIC 2026 will feature dedicated discussion of ground risk within mining projects.
Areas of focus include:
Of particular relevance to the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) community, IGIC 2026 includes a dedicated technical theme covering ground improvement and geo-environmental protection.
Topics identified by the organizers include:
The inclusion of geosynthetics within the program reflects their growing role in addressing the challenging ground, infrastructure, drainage, stabilization, and environmental protection requirements associated with major projects across the region.
Technology and digital transformation will have an expanded presence at IGIC 2026.
The program will explore:
Advanced geo-mapping and spatial intelligence will also feature, including the use of GIS, remote sensing, ground-penetrating radar (GPR), electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASW), UAVs, LiDAR, 3D ground models, and geostatistical analysis.
IGIC 2026 will also look beyond design and construction to examine what happens when ground-related risks lead to project problems.
Sessions will cover:
The third edition of IGIC introduces several expanded areas of focus.
An exclusive mining geotechnics workshop will provide a deeper examination of challenges associated with Saudi Arabia’s rapidly growing mining sector, including seismic risk, flooding, geochemical stability, and ground control.
New Saudi-focused technical tracks will address conditions encountered across the Kingdom, including hard and fractured rock, karst terrain, sabkha soils, groundwater, geohazards, and challenging tunneling environments.
Coverage of giga-project geotechnics is also being expanded, with practical discussion intended to connect design innovation with the realities of executing projects under fast-track delivery models.
There will also be greater emphasis on technology, digitalization, and monitoring, alongside broader participation from project owners, mining operators, developers, consultants, contractors, and technology providers.
IGIC 2026 is bringing together specialists from academia, industry, consulting, and professional organizations around the world.
Keynote speakers currently announced by the organizers include:
Other announced speakers include Prof. Dr. Mehedi Ahmed Ansary, Founder Director, BUET-JIDPUS, and Monique Wainstein, Associate Director, Rock Mechanics.
The conference's Technical Advisory Committee also includes international experts from government, academia, consulting, and industry, including Prof. Jie Han, University of Kansas, alongside specialists from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Germany, India, and the UAE.
A defining feature of IGIC 2026 is its connection with the extraordinary scale of development taking place across the region.
The organizers identify numerous current and upcoming projects whose engineering challenges demonstrate the importance of geotechnical expertise, including:
The geotechnical challenges associated with projects of this scale range from massive earthworks and deep foundations to soil improvement, tunneling, coastal reclamation, groundwater control, rock excavation, slope stability, drainage, and underground infrastructure.
IGIC 2026 will also include specialist workshop opportunities.
One workshop focuses on PLAXIS 3D for pile and piled-raft foundations, covering calibration, soil-structure interaction, and Eurocode compliance.
The program includes pile modeling using volume piles and embedded beams, calibration strategies, pile load-test modeling, soil stiffness, installation effects, piled-raft interaction modeling, and Eurocode requirements.
Workshop speakers include specialists from Cerema, Seequent, and the Dubai Development Authority.
A separate mining-focused workshop, “De-Risking the Mine: Modern Geotechnical Workflows for Open Pits and Tailings,” will examine modern approaches to geotechnical risk management within mining.
Sessions will cover geotechnical engineering for open pits and tailings storage facilities, subsurface data management, 3D geological modeling, slope stability, seepage and finite element analysis, and integrated cloud-based workflows.
A Saudi Arabian tailings storage facility case study is also included within the workshop program.
IGIC 2026 is aimed at professionals involved throughout the infrastructure and geotechnical project lifecycle.
This includes senior leaders and technical professionals working across infrastructure, planning, development, utilities, drainage, power, projects, technical services, facilities, and operations.
The conference will also be relevant to:
Professionals working on bridges, highways, railways, metros, tunnels, pipelines, dams, underground infrastructure, foundations, mining, and major urban developments are among the audiences the conference is designed to bring together.
IGIC 2026 offers an opportunity to gain practical insight into the ground-related challenges affecting project cost, schedule, performance, resilience, and safety across the region.
Delegates will be able to hear lessons from international specialists, explore new ground engineering and monitoring technologies, learn about innovative approaches to reducing geotechnical uncertainty, and connect with the project owners, contractors, consultants, researchers, and technology providers helping shape major projects across MENA.
The conference is also intended to encourage collaboration between industry and academia and create opportunities for knowledge exchange across different disciplines and sectors.
Practitioners, researchers, and technical experts working in geotechnics and ground engineering in the MENA region are invited to contribute to the IGIC 2026 technical program.
The IGIC 2026 website currently lists the abstract submission deadline as August 31, 2026.
Submissions are invited across the conference themes, including ground improvement, tunneling, rock mechanics, geohazards, mining geotechnics, geo-environmental engineering, geosynthetics, digital technologies, AI and machine learning, and forensic geotechnical engineering.
Accepted papers will be published in the Journal of Geotechnical Innovation under Emirates Scholar, the official publishing partner of IGIC 2026.
Postgraduate and PhD students working on geotechnical engineering topics relevant to the MENA region are also encouraged to participate, with opportunities for poster submissions and publication.
With the submission deadline fast approaching, prospective authors are encouraged to review the latest requirements directly on the conference website.
As Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region continue to deliver some of the world's most ambitious infrastructure and development programs, understanding and managing the ground beneath these projects has never been more important.
IGIC 2026 will provide a meeting point for the people developing, designing, constructing, researching, and supplying solutions for these projects, with two days of technical exchange, international expertise, technology, case studies, and networking.
IGIC 2026 – 3rd Annual International Geotechnical Innovation Conference
Dates: October 14–15, 2026
Venue: Fairmont Riyadh
Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Theme: Engineering the Ground Beneath MENA’s Mega Projects
Abstract deadline: August 31, 2026
Visit the official IGIC 2026 website for registration, abstract submission, the latest speaker announcements, workshops, accommodation and travel information, and the full conference program.
You can also download the conference brochure here.
