Growing Humanities: Flourishing Futures in Challenging Times

Call for Papers
Growing Humanities: Flourishing Futures in Challenging Times
Higher Education Conference

29th June 2026, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London

Across the UK and internationally, Humanities disciplines are navigating a period of profound challenge. Declining enrolments, funding pressures, restructuring agendas, and persistent political and media narratives that question the value of Humanities study have created an uncertain landscape for students, educators, and researchers alike. Yet this moment is also one of possibility. The Humanities continue to generate transformative knowledge about culture, history, language, ethics, creativity, and human experience—knowledge that is indispensable for understanding complex global challenges and imagining more just and sustainable futures.
This conference invites participants to explore the theme of Growing Humanities. We deliberately use the concept of growth in expansive and critical ways. While growth is often framed within neoliberal economic logics—metrics, recruitment numbers, income streams, and productivity—this event seeks to foreground alternative understandings. Growth may be intellectual, cultural, social, pedagogical, civic, ecological, or personal. It may involve deepening rather than scaling; collaboration rather than competition; or transformation rather than accumulation. Growth might also mean resistance: protecting spaces for critical inquiry, creativity, reflection, and intervention in contexts where they are under threat.
We aim to create a space that both celebrates the enduring importance of Humanities disciplines and collectively plans for flourishing futures. The conference will bring together academics, professional services colleagues, students, sector leaders, policymakers, and community partners to share ideas, practices, and strategies that support Humanities education and research in Higher Education.
We welcome contributions in multiple formats, including:
• Individual research papers
• Roundtables or panel discussions
• Interactive workshops
• Practice-based or creative interventions
• Strategic or policy-focused sessions
Submissions may be conceptual, theoretical, empirical, or practice-oriented. We particularly encourage proposals that cross disciplinary boundaries or connect academic work with institutional strategy, policy development, or community engagement.
Possible themes include (but are not limited to):
• Reimagining growth beyond neoliberal metrics
• Narratives of value: advocating for the Humanities in public and policy contexts

• Policy interventions and sector advocacy

• Leadership, strategy, and institutional planning for Humanities provision

• Community partnerships and civic Humanities

• Humanities spaces: archives, museums, libraries, cultural and heritage institutions

• Creative practice, speculative reasoning and alternative research methodologies

• Research cultures, collaboration, and capacity-building within and beyond the university

• Sustainability, environmental Humanities, and planetary futures
• Digital Humanities and technological change

• Interdisciplinary and SHAPE–STEM collaborations – e.g., health Humanities or medical Humanities perspectives
• Internationalisation and transnational, transcultural, and/or translingual Humanities perspectives

• Curriculum innovation and pedagogical transformation
• Student engagement, belonging, and wellbeing in Humanities education
• Inclusive and decolonial approaches to Humanities teaching and research
• Careers, employability, and the futures of Humanities graduates

We are particularly interested in contributions that address how Humanities disciplines can thrive under conditions of constraint, offering practical insights, hopeful visions, and critical reflections on institutional and sectoral futures.
Submission Details
Please submit an abstract of 250–300 words, indicating your preferred format (paper, panel, roundtable, or workshop), along with a short biographical note (100 words).
Key Dates
Abstract submission deadline: Friday May 15th, 2026
Notification of acceptance: Monday May 25th, 2026
Conference dates: Monday June 29th, 2026
Audience
The conference is open to colleagues across Higher Education, including academic staff, researchers, doctoral students, professional services staff, educational developers, and sector stakeholders.
Contact
For enquiries, please contact: Dr Lucy Bond on [email protected]
This conference seeks not only to diagnose challenges but to cultivate possibilities. By bringing together diverse voices and perspectives, Growing Humanities aims to nurture ideas, practices, and collaborations that will enable Humanities disciplines to thrive in the years ahead.
Attendance is free and we warmly invite you to join us.

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Host or Publisher College of Liberal Arts and Sciences