Students and staff have an opportunity to present at next summer’s European First Year Experience (EFYE) Conference. The conference will be hosted by Abertay University in collaboration with sparqs, taking place on 27th-29th June 2023 in Dundee.
The call for proposals is open, with a deadline of 25th January 2023 for submissions. Further details are below – with action required fairly swiftly if you are interested to submit a proposal!
Conference Theme
This year’s conference theme is ‘Discovery and Design for Academic and Social Student Success’ with a focus on these four strands:
- Discovery (Personalising approaches to success).
- Dialogue (Creating opportunities for collaborative learning and communities).
- Decolonise (To engage all students for a global perspective).
- Digital (Embracing technologies to support student success).
These sit within the conference emphasis of ‘First Year Experience’, but this can be understood broadly. ‘First year’ can refer to transitions into new phases or experiences of study as well as ‘first year of university’.
Call for Proposals (Now Open)
See the conference webpage for details of the call for proposals. Proposals are invited related to the conference theme – to share results of research, experience, and evidence-based practice.
The deadline for proposals is Wednesday 25th January 2023.
Accepted session types include:
- 20 Minute Presentations.
- 60 Minute Workshops.
- Show & Tell/Lightning Talks/Provocations.
- Posters/Demonstrations.
The conference organisers have emphasised that they particularly welcome proposals from student organisations (unions, associations, etc) and/or proposals which showcase staff and student collaborations, cross-departmental and/or institutional working.
Delegates presenting will need a conference ticket (available from March 2023 with prices provisionally set at £320 early, £350 standard, £200 student). One suggestion we have to help students’ associations with this cost could be to deliver a session in partnership with a member of university staff, and to approach the relevant university manager (e.g. vice principal or staff development manager) to enquire whether funds could be made available for a pair of conference tickets.
Given that the deadline for proposals is 25th January 2023, we recommend taking initial steps promptly.
It would be great if this opportunity could be offered to elected student officers and other students working in partnership with staff – for example faculty reps and school officers. Please support students to request funding for conference tickets from the relevant staff development budget holder.
Queries
If you have any questions, please contact efye@abertay.ac.uk.
If you would like to discuss this further with sparqs, please contact Justin Walker, Development Consultant – justin.walker@sparqs.ac.uk.
Good luck to everyone submitting proposals!
