Disability within Environments CDS PGR Conference 2025
Disability within Environments: disability studies perspectives
Date: 17th September 2025
Call for papers
The University of Leeds Centre for Disability Studies (CDS) Postgraduate Researchers invite you to submit an abstract for our international hybrid conference on the 17th September 2025.
This conference will focus on how disability operates within different environments, for example environments of academia, education, politics, music and arts, green spaces, disaster and/or war zones. Considering recent national and international backlash against equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), military conflicts, humanitarian crisis and the global climate crisis, it is timely to address how disabled people are affected in these different environments and how environments might be reshaped and reimagined to create more sustainable, just, and inclusive futures. The chosen breadth of the topic encompasses all types of environments that exist in our contemporary world with the aim to highlight intersectional, inter-, and transdisciplinary possibilities and challenges.
This international hybrid conference will offer an opportunity for PGRs to share their work, receive constructive feedback, and engage in interdisciplinary discussions. Participants will benefit from networking, skill development, and academic exchange. We intend to provide a supportive space to develop community connections and learn about the exciting work fellow PGRs are producing. This event is open to all PGRs at any stage of their researchers and post-doc researchers from across the world.
We welcome a variety of submission formats, including traditional research papers, creative presentations, and practice-based contributions, embracing diverse methodological approaches. We encourage contributions that engage with empirical, theoretical, methodological, or practice-based perspectives not only within disability studies but from an inter- and transdisciplinary perspective.
Some possible themes are:
- Inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to disability
- Disability and disaster management
- Disability in higher education
- Disability and green spaces
- Disability and creative spaces
- Inclusive research practices
We also welcome any of your own topics linked to the broader overall subject!
Please fill out this ms form which requires a 300-word abstract, a 150-word biographical statement, your institutional affiliation (if applicable), your presentation preference (poster, paper, workshop etc), provisional online or in person attendance, and access needs. Alternatively, if this form is not accessible, please email this information to CDSpostgraduates@leeds.ac.uk.
The closing date for submissions is 18:00 (GMT) 12th June 2025.
Provisional key dates (may be subject to change)
| Abstract submission deadline | 12th June 2025 |
| Acceptances communicated and registration opens | 27th June 2025 |
| Registration closes | 15th August 2025 |
| PGR conference | 17th September 2025 |
Please send any inquiries to CDSpostgraduates@leeds.ac.uk