Call for papers, panel sessions and workshops
The Voluntary Sector and Volunteering Research Conference 2025 theme is
Creating Change Together: Civil society working beyond sector and organisational boundaries
This will take place on 3–4 September 2025 (with New Researchers session on 2 September) at Bayes Business School, City St George’s, University of London, UK
Thinking of submitting an abstract for the conference, but not sure where to start? We are running an online informal drop in session if you have any questions about submitting and writing an abstract for a paper, panel session or workshop for the conference. This could be about what to put into an abstract, how long is a workshop or what does a panel entail? Please join us on the 6th May @ 12.30-1.30pm using this Zoom Link.
Conference theme
These are challenging times. Few would argue that if we have any hope of tackling the ever more complex challenges facing society, we must all work together to create lasting, systemic change. Thinking and working together beyond organisational or sectoral boundaries is essential. But what does this mean in practice?
Increasing attention is being paid to how we might think – and work – beyond bounded sectors and organisations, through drawing on notions of networks, movements, systems, space and place. A less centralised, more dispersed, less structured, and less bounded approach may prise open new ways of working and organising.
We invite contributions to this year’s Voluntary Sector and Volunteering Research conference to explore different ways of thinking and organising, acknowledging, whilst also looking beyond, borders and boundaries. This might include exploring alternative organisational forms, collaborations of different kinds between different sets of actors, the adoption of more movement-based approaches within and beyond voluntary organisations, or what systems change means in theory and in practice. Looking beyond sectoral and organisational boundaries raises questions about how to organise in such spaces and how resources are used and distributed. It encourages us to explore how to build infrastructure, capacity, and support to do this work, how to put people in the centre of design and delivery, and how to research and learn from more experimental approaches.
We welcome submissions for individual papers, panel sessions and workshops. We are particularly keen to receive proposals for the Conference Theme, but also welcome papers that address any issues relevant to volunteering and the voluntary sector within the themes laid out. Deadline is 12th May 2025.
For more information please see the VSSN website www.vssn.org.uk
New researchers can submit abstracts https://lnkd.in/edrvj56U
Abstracts for the main conference can be submitted https://lnkd.in/edrvj56U
https://lnkd.in/e24iM-y7
