OSSREA conducts conferences and workshops in collaboration with its National Chapters and different institutions throughout the world. Some of the workshop and conference modalities used are:

Regional and International Thematic Conferences
OSSREA has been conducting, either independently or in collaboration with other institutions, 2-4 thematic conferences annually. These conferences focused on various topical issues relevant to the region and were often launched in addition to those organised under OSSREA’s ongoing research projects.

Discipline-Focused Workshops
These are regional workshops exploring the state of the art in the teaching of and research in the social sciences, with special reference to the Eastern and Southern African Region. These kind of workshops is expected to provided useful fora for identifying deficiencies in teaching and research, for suggesting ways of using research to improve the quality of teaching, and for exploring possibilities for collaboration among educational departments in the region.

National Workshops
Initially, OSSREA had been organizing the National Workshops in collaboration with institutions in member countries. After the formation of the National Chapters, however, each one began to select a topic that is timely and relevant for that country and organised a national workshop in which members of its constituency and other experts in the field can present papers and participated in the deliberations. This tradition has continued to-date although the timing of the workshops is irregular.
The main source of funding for the workshops is the OSSREA Secretariat. A summary of the papers presented and highlights of the discussions at the workshops have been compiled into a short report for most of the national workshops and published by the Secretariat.