Beyond the Obvious: A Research Collective
This project launched with a live event in Edinburgh December 12th 2022.
The aim of the live event was to stimulate discussioninto lessons learnt from the pandemic that could be applied to academic conferences.
Six themes were identified, each with an international research team.
Publications by The Collective.
Belonging group:
The Praxis of Belonging at Conferences
Korpan, C., Galvin, T., Van Wingerden, C., Bao, D., Frandsen, N., Stevens, C., Varwell, S., Theodosakis, M., Gagan, R., and Park, P. (2025, June 27). The Praxis of Belonging at Conferences. A practice guide for those who organise or support conferences to consider building belonging: Online, hybrid, or in person. Beyond the Obvious. https://edta.info.yorku.ca/beyond-the-obvious/
Project Summary
Beyond the Obvious is a research collective focused on learning lessons from the pandemic to apply to academic conferences. We identified six themes:
- Language - Padlet
- Technology - Padlet
- Third space professionals - Padlet
- Costs - Padlet - Provocation
- Belonging - Padlet
- Learning from Pedagogy - Padlet - Provocation
Follow the links to padlets with notes and the provocations (slides) provided on December 12th.. While researchers are welcome to disseminate their work as they see fit, we are keen on open educational resources.
This is an experiment in community based research.
Some resources on conference planning, online vs in person
Where next? Things to consider when choosing conference format - Katie Tindle, SRHE - Conference Inference
Popovic, C. and Kustra, E. (2020) ‘Tips on How to Plan a Virtual Academic Conference’ Times Higher Education, April 6 2020,
Any questions, comments, suggestions please contact Celia Popovic - cpopovic@yorku.ca
