Applying to present

Applications for presentations are open to all 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students participating on a Lancaster University undergraduate course from across the Lancaster Partnership.

The deadline for applications is 6th January 2025. You should apply to present by completing the application form.

The application process involves producing a 200-word abstract. This abstract is a summary of your research which is suitable for a general audience. We have provided advice on how to write an abstract below. You will also be asked to give details of your institution.

Please note that you do not have to have completed your research by the time of application – you need only to be the position to produce an abstract and be confident that the research will be completed in time for the conference.

As part of the application process, you must identify a supervisor and they must approve your application before you submit it. This may be your programme director, project lead, dissertation supervisor, academic tutor, or any other member of academic staff – you should ask them to confirm that the research has passed through any relevant ethics processes and is suitable for submission. Once received, all applications are reviewed by a panel of academics, who will recommend which presentations should go forward for the conference website, and may suggest small amendments to the abstract.

Once you have been advised that your presentation application has been accepted, you should visit the accepted presentation guidance section of this website. There you will find instructions on how to proceed, a detailed timeline and advice on how to prepare and upload your presentation to the conference website.

Writing an Abstract

All applications for presentations must include an abstract and confirmation your supervisor has approved your application and has confirmed that it has passed through any relevant ethics processes. Your abstract will be used by the conference organisers to select presentations that are suitable for the Conference, so it is worth taking time to think about your abstract before you write and submit it.

Writing an abstract can often seem challenging. It can be difficult to condense your whole project and research into just 200 words. You should try to keep in mind, however, the purpose of an abstract: to give a concise summary of your research, alongside with some key information, to an audience that may not know anything about your research area.

Your abstract should be no more than 200 words (excluding references) and should include five principal areas.

  1. Your title. Give your presentation a title. Make it clear, short and to the point.
  2. Your research question. Give a clear statement of what question your research seeks to answer.
  3. Your method. Indicate how you seek to answer your question, i.e., your methodology. Are you drawing on any particular sources or data? Are you using any particular approach to your analysis? Methods vary enormously by discipline.
  4. Your findings. What does your research show? It might be a little too soon to share all your main findings (results), but if you have initial findings this will be interesting and you might also wish to share any hypothesis (assumptions) you have at this stage.
  5. The significance of your research. What are the implications of your research? These might be ‘real world’ implications or implications for future research.

If you need to, you can include any references at the end, using any reference style suitable for your discipline. Try to present your research in clear language which will be accessible to a non-specialist audience. Your abstract will be published on the website and so provides conference participants with information about your project and the content of your presentation. Write clearly, and succinctly, check your spelling, avoid long sentences with lots of definitions and extensive references. Try asking a friend (outside your discipline) to read it and give you some feedback before you submit.

As part of your application we ask for you to provide 3 keywords relating to your research. These should represent the content of your presentation, and will be used to index your presentation.

Subject specific websites, which support writing an abstract:

Contact us

Please do not hesitate to contact us at ugconference@lancaster.ac.uk for more information.