Research leaders convene virtual conference series

As COVID-19 hit, conferences were cancelled worldwide. Knowing how essential they are to academic collaboration, the Associate Deans of Research from New Zealand universities decided to do something about it.

16 July 2020

“We created Cancelled Conference Conversations, a virtual symposium series that is designed to allow academics to share presentations that were accepted for now-cancelled conferences,” says Associate Professor Joanna Higgins, who is the Associate Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Education at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.

Around 950 people have attended the series over the fourteen weeks it has been running, with up to 90 people at each online event. With most international conferences still cancelled because of COVID, the programme is set to continue throughout 2020.

The symposium happens every Tuesday afternoon, and each session is hosted by Wellington University, Auckland University of Technology (AUT), the University of Auckland, and the University of Waikato. The sessions cover a wide range of themes.

“Our broader agenda is to collaborate and share amongst researchers across our universities. The silver lining of the online programme is that we’ve been able to democratise opportunities to showcase colleagues’ work locally, and internationally, using technology at no cost and greater frequency than we could in person.

“A group of regular attendees has emerged, and some have connected with old friends, while others have formed new research collaborations.”

Those involved from Wellington University so far include the Faculty of Education’s Dr Dayle Anderson, Dr Delia Baskerville, Dr Cherie Chu-Fuluifaga, Dr Michael Johnston, and Dr Mark Sheehan, as well as Professor Nicholas Agar from the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Associate Professor Markus Luczak-Roesch and Dr Cathal Doyle from the School of Information Management and Shelley Dawson from the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies.

“While we aim to keep a broad focus, some presenters have tailored their presentations to stimulate thinking about the varied impacts of COVID. Attendees are able to ask questions in the Zoom chat, and after the presentation they can ask questions of the speakers.

“We’ve had feedback that many people have appreciated the opportunity to learn about a broader range of educational research topics and approaches than they may have, had they been at a conference,” says Associate Professor Higgins.

Researchers interested in taking part should contact Bronwen Cowie at the University of Waikato bronwen.cowie@waikato.ac.nz, with their name, the title of their presentation, and two to three sentences about the scope of the presentation.

The next in the series is 'Talatalanoa ke hoko atu: Ongoing complex conversations and negotiations of practice in higher education,' on Tuesday 21 July from 2 pm - 3 pm NZST.