If you’re reading this and getting deja vu, it is for good reason – this post was originally shared on Monday. However, due to a wordpress plugin-driven techno-mystery, the post was lost. So, round 2! (or as close an approximation as I can manage, it’s Sod’s law that this is one of the rare times I wrote directly on the site rather than first drafting on google docs…). Anyway, on with the post:
On Friday, I posted on ALPS about the upcoming CPP x ASPIRE conference, happening at UCL on 12th June – for which registration is now open. Well, it must be SoTL season here in the UK because I’m back already with news of another upcoming SoTL event, this time a postgraduate teaching conference, taking place at the University of York on the 17th July 2026: Teaching in the in-between: Postgraduate Perspectives on SoTL.
This conference brings together Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs), postgraduate researchers, and early-career educators across the social sciences to reflect on the changing landscape of teaching in higher education. Despite delivering a significant proportion of frontline teaching, postgraduate teachers are often excluded from traditional Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) spaces and professional pedagogical networks. This conference aims to create a collaborative space for sharing teaching practices, pedagogical research, and experiences of teaching across disciplines.
It is fantastic to see initiatives like this happening, focused on early-career educators. So, if you’re a PGR/ GTA/ ECR or know of any working on teaching and learning in the social sciences, this will be of interest for yourself or to share.
The conference’s organisers, Grace Cooper and Kate Long, two PhD candidates in the University’s of York’s Department of Politics and International Relations, have recently opened the call for papers, details of which are on the conference website and that which I will quote below:
Abstract submission
Submissions are encouraged from across a range of social disciplines, including but not limited to: business, education, law, sociology, economics, philosophy and politics.
We welcome submissions on any aspect of postgraduate teaching and learning practice, and particularly encourage submissions from postgraduate researchers, GTAs, and those on insecure teaching contracts. We are especially interested in papers related to the following themes:
- Navigating teaching as a GTA or early-career educator, including identity, precarity, and professional development
- Methodological (and pedagogical) innovation in SoTL, including reflective practice, inclusive teaching, and research-led learning
- AI, assessment design, academic integrity, and digital teaching practices
Please submit an anonymised abstract of no more than 250 words. There will be no attendance fee for the conference.
The deadline for abstract submission is Wednesday 10 June, 5pm.
Abstracts can be submitted here.
Right, now to learn from my mistakes and back-up this post…