Let's Talk About [X]
Let's Talk About [X] is a multidisciplinary conference that allows undergraduates from across all four Colleges to showcase their research and their contribution to a wider audience through 10-minute presentations.
It's a unique opportunity for you to develop research communication, presentation, and public engagement skills. Through 1:1 training with research-active PhD students, as well as through a series of classes, you'll be guided towards making an excellent presentation.
You'll have the chance to be recorded, meaning you'll be able to show off to prospective employers or research supervisors after you graduate.
Submissions have now closed for Let's Talk About [X] 2024.
We'll post a schedule for this year's event shortly.
Next year's call for papers will open in Nov / Dec 2024.
A call for abstracts for [X]position will open in late Spring / early Summer 2024.
What's in it for you?
Even if you're just watching, you'll learn about presenting.
Most degrees have presentation assessments. While the interdisciplinary style of Let's Talk About [X] is different from what you'll have to do on your course, it'll let you see what the atmosphere is like when a crowd of people listen to (and question) someone else on what they've been working on.
This conference gives everyone a chance to show off.
We're running this conference because opportunities for you to carry out and present student research are rare. Most often they are projects built into courses for credit. Sometimes they take the form of summer placements and internships. Usually, though, the output is presented to a small number of people who work in the same specialised field. Then there are students who choose to do completely independent research - the opportunity for them to relay what they've found is even smaller.
If you give a talk, you can watch a recording later. (If you want to.)
We won't show the recording to anyone without your permission, but you can watch your own presentation and decide what you did well and what you want to change.
Public engagement matters.
If you've been considering an academic career after you graduate you might know by now that success at a university is measured in part by the number of research papers you produce and, depending on your subject, by the grants you successfully apply for in order to keep your research group active. You might also be aware that universities as a whole are assessed on various research criteria and that "impact" is becoming a more and more important part of this (20% of a university's overall score, in fact). This means demonstrating "reach" and "significance", which can include something as basic as increasing the public's understanding. This includes using social media to help spread the news.