Leeds University Business School Doctoral Research Conference 2025

The Leeds University Business School Doctoral Research Conference will bring together Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs) from all departments, providing a platform to present frontier research.

Register here.

The conference fosters stronger research connections among PGRs, Early Career Researchers (ECRs), supervisors, and colleagues at Leeds University Business School. The aim is to offer the opportunity to all PGRs to develop further their research presentation/communication skills, receive constructive feedback, and inspire researchers across centres and departments at Leeds University Business School. First Year students are encouraged to attend the conference to gain valuable experience and connect with PGRs and staff across the Faculty.

Hear from staff and students who attended the 2024 conference on why you should attend and how the experience could benefit you:

• Dr Ghasem Zaefarian, Deputy Head of the Graduate School

• Ahmad, Postgraduate Researcher

• Dr Hanna Gajewska-De Mattos, Director of PGR Studies

• Ali, Postgraduate Researcher

• Dr Maria Ilieva, Director of PGR Studies

• Alireza, Postgraduate Researcher

• Farzana, Postgraduate Researcher

The conference will include a mix of plenary, panel and breakout sessions. We anticipate the breakout sessions will follow a Pecha Kucha, short presentation, methodology to allow for as many colleagues to participate as possible and to provide plenty of space for discussion and dialogue.

Leeds University Business School has research strengths across many fields and disciplines, with theoretical, methodological and empirical depth that can offer insights and solutions to the most challenging and pressing of issues, be they corporate, policy-related or more societal.

All PGRs are invited to present their PhD research at the conference. First Year students are invited to give poster presentations. All types of research approach are welcomed, including theoretical, empirical, methodological, national-specific, international, and comparative research. Prizes are given at the awards ceremony for best talks (based on abstracts) and best poster.

Programme Overview

PGR Prizes

One prize per department of £100 (as an Amazon voucher) will be awarded for Best PGR Presentation based on the abstract and presentation and one overall prize will be awarded for Best Poster.

Deadlines

• Abstract submission – 12pm (UK time), Monday 28 April 2025

• PowerPoint Submission – 12pm (UK time), Monday 28 April 2025

• Registrations close – 12pm (UK time), Friday 2 May 2025

• Poster submission – 12pm (UK time), Monday 19 May 2025

• PowerPoint Editing deadline – 8am (UK time), Monday 2 June 2025

Poster Presentations

• First year students are invited to present posters at the conference.  Posters must be A1 landscape and must be submitted as a pdf to j.rodley@leeds.ac.uk by 12pm (UK time) on Monday 19 May 2025.  Submitted posters will be printed and displayed at the conference for you and you will have an opportunity to chat about your poster during a 30 minute poster session.

• Academic poster training will be provided by Leeds University Business School before the conference and details will be added to Minerva and circulated to PGRs.  You can also find a section in the Graduate School Organisation in Minerva on academic poster training.

• You poster will be entered into the Leeds University Business School Doctoral Research Conference Best Poster Awards.

PowerPoint presentations

• If you would like to give a PowerPoint presentation at the conference, please indicate this when you register.  You will then need to submit an abstract (following the guidelines below) and PowerPoint to j.rodley@leeds.ac.uk by 12pm (UK time) on Monday 28 April 2025.  Although your abstract must be the final version, you will be given editing permissions to continue to update your PowerPoint in a OneDrive folder until 8am (UK time) on Monday 2 June 2025.

• Presentations are allocated 15 minutes plus 5 minutes for Q&A.

• Your presentation will be entered into the Leeds University Business School Doctoral Research Conference Best PGR Presentation Awards based on the abstract and presentation.  One award will be presented to a PGR from each department.

Submitting Abstracts for Oral Presentations

• Final abstracts must be submitted to j.rodley@leeds.ac.uk by 12pm (UK time) on Monday 28 April 2025.

• All extended abstracts MUST be double spaced, in 12 point Times New Roman font.  The abstracts should have no more than 500 words and should include the following elements:

• On the first page:

1. TITLE (bold, all caps)

2. Author Name

3. Keywords: please provide a list of 4-5 keywords

4. Description: please provide a one (1) sentence description of your paper

• On the subsequent pages:

1. Heading One: Research problem

2. Heading Two: Theoretical/conceptual reference point

3. Heading Three: Methodological approach

4. Heading Four: Summary of key findings

5. Heading Five: Key Contributions

Photography and filming will be taking place at this event for use by the University for marketing and publicity uses in our publications, on our website, social media and any third party publications.  Please contact Jennifer Rodley at j.rodley@leeds.ac.uk if you wish to be exempted from this activity.

Past Doctoral Conferences

Leeds University Business School Doctoral Conference 2023