2024 Qualitative Health Research Network Conference

The Qualitative Health Research Network at UCL organises biennial international conferences to allow emerging and experienced researchers from within and outside the UCL community to present, experiment with, and learn about qualitative theory, methods, and writing.

For our sixth conference, we turn our attention to what we have learned through crisis and continued disruption, and how this has the potential to aid understanding and inform progress in the field of qualitative health research. This conference seeks to embrace the learnings that have arisen in response to ongoing significant political, social and societal disruptions and their impact on human relationships, healthcare services, as well as political and ethical based values.

By focusing on emergence as a lens to understand the challenges and uncertainty we are facing in our work, the conference theme is designed to address questions on how we creatively proceed, and how the variety of responses might align on a spectrum between success and failure.

In this way we are building a platform for critical reflection and discussion on the complexities that impact us as a global research community.

Keynote speakers

We are delighted to announce that so far, the following speakers have been confirmed:

• Professor Jennie Popay, Lancaster University
• Dr Laura Sheard, University of York
• Dr Sohail Jannesari, Kings College London
• Dr Alison Thomson, Queen Mary University of London

Register to Attend

Our call for abstracts is now open! The deadline for submitting your abstract has now been extended to the 31st October 2023.

We invite abstracts of up to 300 words for consideration as either a 10-15 minute live presentation OR as a short, pre-recorded poster presentation.

We welcome empirical and theoretical work from a wide range of disciplines, practitioners, policymakers, and health service users on topics including, but not limited to:

• Healthcare in a changing world
• Working with uncertainty
• Global perspectives
• Disruption and disruptive research

• New approaches in qualitative research methods
• Use of social theory to understand healthcare delivery
• Collaboration and engagement
• Dissemination and knowledge mobilisation
• Healthcare improvement

All abstracts will undergo peer review and will be selected for either live presentation or pre-recorded poster format based on quality and fit with the conference theme.

We are excited to announce that alongside our virtual conference we are looking to host pre-conference in-person workshops at University College London. We therefore also invite abstracts from those interested in facilitating a workshop. These could be qualitative methods-based, on specific topics relevant to the conference theme, or be more focussed on networking.

There is flexibility with the timings and format of these workshops. If you are interested in submitting an abstract for a workshop, please contact the conference team to discuss. We would be happy to discuss ideas and support you to design and create your workshop.

The deadline for abstract submissions, including proposals for workshops, has been extended to 31st October 2023.

To submit your abstract, you need to create an account on Exordo, which you can do via the link below.

Submit your abstract

We expect to notify successful abstract authors in early December 2023.

Submission guidelines

We invite abstracts of 300 words for consideration as a 10-15 minute live presentation, short pre-recorded poster presentation, or a pre-conference workshop. We welcome empirical and theoretical work from a wide range of disciplines, practitioners, policymakers, and health service users in areas including, but not limited to:

• Healthcare in a changing world
• Working with uncertainty

• Global perspectives
• Disruptions and disruptive research
• New approaches in qualitative research methods
• Use of social theory to understand healthcare delivery
• Collaboration and engagement

• Dissemination and knowledge mobilisation
• Healthcare improvement

All abstracts will undergo peer review and will be selected for either live or pre-recorded format based on quality and fit with the conference theme.

Abstracts will be selected on:

• Quality
• Originality
• Relevance (to the conference theme and topics outlined in the call for abstracts)
• Innovative techniques to collect, analyse or present qualitative data
• Use of plain language for a diverse audience

• Clarity (i.e. clearly states an aim and a conclusion)

Abstracts must conform to the following requirements:

• Include a short title (maximum 100 characters)
• Include the names of all authors and their organisations (If relevant, please include the authors department with their organisation name; for example, Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London, UK

• Maximum length 300 words (excluding title and author details)
• Structure: background, aim or objectives, methods, results, conclusions (in the case of study protocols, please include expected results and current stage of the work)

Deadlines

The abstract submission deadline is 31st October 2023. Presenters of successful abstracts will need to register for the conference by 19th January 2024. If you have any queries about the abstract submission process, please email: qhrn@ucl.ac.uk