Over 400 sessions planned for 2025 Annual Conference

We are delighted to announce that the provisional programme for this year’s Annual International Conference, taking place at the University of Birmingham and online, has now been published. With over 400 sessions planned across four days, the conference is shaping up to be wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and engaging.

The programme includes our series of Chair’s events, convened by Professor Pat Noxolo in her role as Chair of Conference. This year, inspired by Pat’s chosen conference theme - Geographies of creativity/creative geographies – a series of short films have been specially commissioned for the conference, exploring subjects such as the archives of Professor Stuart Hall, the Blk Art Group, what it’s like to be starting out on your creative career in Birmingham, and the heavy metal music scene in and around the city.

Conference delegates will be able to watch the films and hear from invited speakers and the filmmakers themselves. Complementing this, attendees are also invited to an evening of cinema, co-hosted with Flatpack Films.

Alongside these sessions, we’ll hear from Black influencers working creatively with geographical ideas; from researchers using dance and storytelling to Midlands-based artists who will discuss how their sense of place contributes to their work.

We are also delighted to welcome sponsored lectures by leading journals to the conference, including ACME, Antipode, Children's Geographies, Dialogues in Human Geography, Geo: Geography and Environment, Geoforum, the Geographical Journal, Journal of Geography and Higher Education, Political Geography, Social and Cultural Geography, TESG, and Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.

These sit alongside lectures sponsored by our Digital Geography and Transport Geography Research Groups, along with walking tours, film screenings, art exhibitions, workshops, and more.

Registration for the conference is open, with discounted early bird rates available until Friday 13 June.

Explore the conference programme highlights now.