The annual UON Research conference was held on Tuesday 21^st June online on Collaborate and on Wednesday 22^nd June on campus in the Town Hall. The hybrid format allowed off-site students and those not able to come onto campus a platform to present and to attend, but still gave those people who wanted to come onto campus the opportunity for a traditional conference format, to meet and network. Over the two days we had 2 keynotes, a brand new (for us!) Pecha Kucha style of presentation, 38 oral presentations from both postgraduate researchers and staff and 4 ‘Roundtable’ sessions.

On Tuesday Dr Brahim Herbane from DeMontfort University, gave a timely key note on “Looking beyond REF 2021 – New Horizons and Challenges for University Research Environments”. On Weds Dr David Smart, Clinical Director GPA Federation, gave an inspiring presentation entitled “Supporting yourself and others as a researcher: a GP journey through common mood disorder to the Ten Keys to Happier Living.”

Dr Cathy Smith welcomed researchers to the conference on both days and on Wednesday she announced the winners of the Graduate School’s 2021-22 Images of Research Competition. After this we saw UON’s first research Pecha Kucha, with 5 researchers presenting their research in this creative format. The words, ‘Pecha Kucha’ mean Sound of Conversation. Pecha Kucha is a storytelling presentation format where a presenter shows 20 slides for 20 seconds each, with commentary. The slides move automatically as the presenter is speaking and this means that presentations must be concise to get their key messages across in the time, synchronising what they say to their slides – no easy task!

Recordings and slides for most sessions over the two days will be available to view in due course. Keep an eye on this blog for further information about where to find them.

Congratulations and thank you to everyone involved in the conference and to all those who came along to support it.