Doctoral Colloquium

Doctoral Colloquium

The iConference Doctoral Colloquium provides doctoral students the opportunity to present their work and engage with their peers and faculty members in a setting that is relatively informal, but allows for high-quality intellectual interactions.

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Overview

During iConference 2026, participation in the Doctoral Colloquia will be restricted to those students who have applied and been accepted; the colloquia will not be open to observers.

Applications to participate in our Doctoral Colloquia are encouraged from any and all doctoral students. We are seeking broad representation, and participation is not limited to students from member iSchools; Ph.D. students from any university are encouraged to apply.

Conditions: Please note that accepted applicants must register during the Early Bird registration period for the conference to take part in the Doctoral Colloquium at iConference 2026. The organizers reserve the right to withdraw the acceptance if these conditions are not met.

Virtual and Onsite

We plan to offer two Doctoral Colloquia, one on-site in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK and one virtual. We want to give all applicants the choice to pick the type of session that is most convenient for them, and welcome applications from across the globe to join us in Edinburgh if you are able to travel. For those who can not join us in Edinburgh we would like to provide the opportunity to participate in an online session during the virtual part of the conference. This approach will help us better target the needs of our Doctoral Colloquium participants. Please indicate your preference of participation in the application.

Application

Student participants in each of our doctoral colloquia will be selected by the chair committee. Application materials will be submitted as a single pdf document to our ConfTool submission site by 20 October 2025. All materials must be in English, and include the following two sections:

Section 1: A short introductory statement explaining:

who the applicant is, their institutional affiliation, supervisors, and (provisional) thesis title;
the applicant's preference of participation: onsite or online
the applicant’s interest in the colloquium;
the applicant’s current stage of their graduate career (beginning, completion of required courses or initial candidacy stage, full doctoral status, data collection and analysis, about to submit thesis etc);
an explanation of what they hope to get out of attendance at the doctoral colloquium.

Section 2: A research statement of no more than 500 words describing their dissertation project.

Submission Portal Conftool

Participation and Format

Accepted applicants must register during the Early Bird registration period for the conference to take part in the Doctoral Colloquium at iConference 2026.

In order to promote extended interaction among conference attendees and students, those accepted for the virtual doctoral colloquium will be expected to meet the following obligations after they have been accepted:

Register for the iConference during the early-bird period, and participate throughout the entire iConference.

Preparations:

a 3-page (single spaced) dissertation research summary document

Prepare a brief presentation to be made during the event.

Prepare questions they would like to ask of doctoral colloquium mentors, either formally in the panel or informally during the day.

The colloquium is projected to be a 90-minute to half-day event, with multiple small group discussions. We will focus on collaborative inquiry and scholarly discourse with peers and experienced faculty serving as mentors.

More detail on participation will be provided prior to the session.