Editors
Simone Sarmento
Ana Luiza Pires de Freitas
Rozane Rodrigues Rebechi
Marine Laísa Matte

This volume includes papers developed from conference contributions to the 8th ICLHE conference on “EMInclusion: Integrating Content and Language for Egalitarian Higher Education”, which took place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from the 24th to the 27th of September 2025. As a typical book of proceedings, this publication might thus not seem that unusual in academia, not even when its production phase of a year is impressively expedient, reflecting effective work on behalf of the contributors and especially the editors. What makes it truly remarkable, however, is the story behind it, which it is my privilege to unfold. But not to worry – as the opening act, I’m not aiming at a complete narrative of events here, but rather at an appraisal of the conference that has made this book possible. While the label of ‘8th ICLHE conference’ hints at continuity rather than innovation, this event was truly ground-breaking in terms of its location and, linked to that, academic focus. Hosted by the Federal University of Health Sciences of Porto Alegre (UFCSPA) and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), it was the first ICLHE conference outside Europe; the first time our members and other academics, researchers and teacher (educators) interested in English medium higher education and, more generally, the intersection of content and language in higher education could meet and learn from each other on non-European soil. While we have had numerous online international events – after all, our members are based in more than thirty countries all over the globe – the three conference days in the South of Brazil provided clear proof of how enriching and important the physical setting is for situated and contextualised exchange and discussion, also repositioning who and what is (not) local and more or less ‘normal’, in the sense of to be expected.