The 9th International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF9), to be held at Universitat de Lleida (Lleida, Catalonia), on June 27-29, 2016, follows the previous eight conferences in the series, which were held in Helsinki (2008), Southampton (2009), Vienna (2010), Hong Kong (2011), Istanbul (2012), Rome (2013), Athens (2014) and Beijing (2015). The 2016 venue is Lleida, a mid-size city in Catalonia, located 150 kms west of Barcelona, easily reachable by train from Barcelona (70 minutes) and from Madrid (2.5 hours).

ELF has become a major and expanding field of academic research within applied linguistics. Its interconnections with linguistics, pedagogy and a host of other disciplines are being currently discussed, acknowledged, and further investigated in the increasingly multilingual contexts that characterize the era of globalization. In fact, ELF is gradually being recognised as one manifestation of these multilingual environments in globalised societies, and it does need to be researched for contributing to current developments in multilingualism and language contact as well as in many other related fields comprised in the broader applied linguistics field of research. Thus, the analysis of corpora, or the study of intercultural interaction, and the pedagogical implications that may be derived from the study of ELF are central aspects of this conference, interconnected with issues affecting language use and identity, intercultural awareness, language policy-making and communication and information technology at all levels facilitating human communication, both locally and globally. The ELF9 committee members invite participants to contribute to this conference by submitting proposals theorizing or reporting on current ELF research and/or by participating in constructive ELF discussions on a variety of issues that will undoubtedly lead to maintaining ELF interest, enhancing ELF research aims and scope, increasing ELF insight, and, in short, furthering ELF research.