Call for Papers

NEON would like to invite the submission of research papers and examples of best practice for the NEON Summer Symposium 2021. The event is now in its ninth year and regularly attracts over 200 delegates. This year our two-day event will be held on Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd of July – online. The theme will be:

 “Access, Participation and the Post-Covid Tertiary System” 

As the higher education system, like the rest of the world, grapples with the Covid-19 and its impact this year’s symposium will focus on the how the pandemic will interact with broader social and political trends to shape the work of those in the access and participation field. Alongside the pandemic there is a desire amongst policymakers to re-shape the curriculum at Level 3, extend provision of higher technical qualifications and reform the higher education admission system to ‘level up’ opportunities across the country. In this context the symposium will consider how access and participation work can be pivotal to enabling what could be a very different tertiary system to provide opportunities to succeed for students from all backgrounds.

We are seeking research papers/best practice examples that focus on the above theme and investigate the following:

• The impact of Covid-19 on access/participation work and innovations in delivery that have emerged.
• Research and practice with learners undertaking vocational qualifications or studying in further education settings and/or collaborations between further education and higher education.
• The relationship between higher education participation/access & participation practice and inequalities associated with region, gender, ethnicity, place and other protected characteristics.

More general papers covering any area of access & participation work are also welcome.

We will seek to combine papers into interesting and stimulating sessions, the outcomes of which will be captured by NEON and used to inform our agenda going forward into 2021-22.

 Presenting at the NEON Summer Symposium will have a tangible outcome for presenters i.e.:

• Informing the agenda and work of NEON
• Inclusion in the NEON website
• Sharing your institution’s/organisation’s work with a broad range of delegates
• Presenting at the largest UK conference that focuses upon widening access

Paper presentations should be between 15-20 minutes in length with an additional 10 minutes allocated for further questions.

If you wish to submit a paper please submit a 500 word abstract by filling the online form here –  https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3KVQMQD.  

The closing date for submissions is Friday 26^th of March 2021.

Please note: all presenters/speakers of the NEON Summer Symposium are required to register for the event.

The NEON Summer Symposium – the event for widening access professionals you can’t afford to miss