Graduate Research Conference

The first U21 Graduate Research Conference was held in 2008 and the event now runs every 12 - 18 months.

One of the main aims of the conference is to provide attendees with an opportunity to develop a range of skills relevant to the research process. Delegates often given a short talk, but also present their work as a poster which provides the focus for one-to-one and small group discussion in specific poster sessions. This allows in-depth exploration of the topics and also gave important opportunities to develop communication skills. Attendees are also encouraged to produce short articles about their research which are reviewed by other participants before the final editing. This provides an experience of the peer review process, assessing the quality of other people’s writing before publication, which underpins academic publication. Guest speakers and experts on the conference's theme are also invited, contributing to the thought-provoking and stimulating event.

The themes for the conferences are deliberately general, allowing graduate students from a broad range of disciplines to come together to shed light on new ways of thinking about the topic in question. 2008's theme was "Water"; 2009's theme was "Sustainable Cities" and 2011's theme was "Food".

The next Graduate Research Conference will be hosted by University College Dublin in July 2013 on the theme 'Energy'.