For Presenters
UKAT will be celebrating its anniversary in 2025, marking ten years of shaping the future of personal tutoring and academic advising in higher education. The theme of the 2025 UKAT Annual Conference is ‘Learning Well’, and it will celebrate the power of positivity and the joy of learning and university life.
We invite contributions that explore how personal tutoring and advising support students to succeed and thrive by fostering positive emotion, encouraging engagement, building partnerships and connections, making meaning of their education, and celebrating outcomes and success.
We encourage contributors to explore how personal tutoring ‘connects’ students’ academic, extra-curricular and personal experiences. We would also like to see proposals that celebrate how personal tutoring can create joyful learning and life experiences for both staff and students.
We also especially welcome proposals for contributions that showcase work or activity that has been developed in partnership and/or are presented by students, academics, professional staff, Students’ Unions, and external organisations.
We have suggested a variety of familiar session formats: presentations, workshops, discussion panels, and lightning talks. But we invite creative interpretation of these formats – let your imagination run wild!
We welcome direct contributions from students, practitioners, and all members of the higher education community.
Conference Themes for proposals:
- Positive emotion – positive psychology; celebrating success; student-mental health and wellbeing
- Engagement – theories and practices of promoting positive engagement through personal tutoring, learning spaces, digital, and learner analytics; co-creating personal tutoring; student voice; personalising experience; breaking down engagement barriers
- Connections and Partnerships – between tutors and tutees, students and support staff; student life; intercultural engagement
- Meaning – helping students make meaning of their education; self-discovery and transformation; educational gain; learning beyond the taught curriculum; life beyond and transition out of university: ’world and life readiness’
- Success and outcomes – personal tutoring support for educational gain; evaluating progress; celebrating success; success for all
Conference Session Formats
Presentation [50 minutes]
Individual, a pair or a small team of presenters, present in depth for 50 minutes on an area in which they have significant experience/expertise, and which will be of interest to and have impact for the audience. Time should be allocated for a few questions.
Interactive Workshop [50 minutes]
A participatory interactive workshop should enable delegates to work actively towards learning something new in relation to a specific topic. It should include discussion and collaborative activities which enable reflection on delegates’ own and others experience and sharing and analysis of knowledge.
Lightning Talk [15 minutes]
10-15 minute presentations grouped on a common theme managed by a facilitator within a 50 minute session (three Lightning Talks per session). Each presentation is on a single topic, issue, experience, research area, or innovative practice. Maximum of 5 slides per talk. Any questions to be asked at the end of all the talks. Where possible we will attempt to make time and space available immediately after the session for informal discussions to continue between presenters and delegates.
Discussion Panel [50 minutes]
50 minute discussion focused on a specific topic by a panel of experts. The facilitator and/or audience ask questions of the panel pertinent to the topic and the panellists each give their expert perspective on the questions. The proposal must identify the topic for the session, the name of the facilitator and the names and brief biographical details of the experts who will constitute the panel. Note that including the names of the experts in the proposal does not commit them to participating at this stage, it simply provides useful information to reviewers on likely panellists and their depth and breadth of experience
The Call for Proposals is now closed. Proposers who have had proposals accepted can manage their submission using the Online Submission System.