Pre-Conference for Doctoral Students 2025

“What I found the most rewarding about the pre-conference in Malmö was the opportunity to get feedback on a draft of my methods chapter from a professor in my field. There aren’t that many opportunities during your PhD years where you can get feedback from people outside your own department. My reader was very thorough and sharp, but also encouraging and constructive, and gave me valuable critique that I have incorporated into my work since.”

Torbjörn Rolandsson, Stockholm University, Sweden, participant in 2019

“I could not imagine a better way to start my PhD studies than attending the NordMedia pre-conference! The pre-conference offered a friendly introduction to crucial parts of PhD life, especially presenting and discussing papers in a real conference setting. This experience has been enormously beneficial in my work. I also learned a lot from other participants, and during the pre-conference week, the group quite quickly became a community. The side events in Malmö were also great fun!”

Outi Puukko, University of Helsinki, Finland, participant in 2019

“I found the community and engaging scholars at the NordMedia pre-conference in Bergen incredible. Attending the conference provided me with lots of feedback and new connections. The highlight for me was getting comments from a diverse group of PhD students, along with an external professor and a knowledgeable and thorough opponent. Their comments helped me tweak the project at an early stage. We quickly became a community that went out in the evenings throughout the whole conference.“

Roy Aulie Jacobsen, Kristiania University College, Norway, participant in 2023

Questions and Answers

• How much does the pre-conference cost?
  The doctoral pre-conference is free of charge. Each participant will pay his or her travel and accommodation costs. Please ask your home institution for funding possibilities. Unfortunately, we are not able to offer any travel grants.
• Is there a possibility to gain credit points (ECTS) from the pre-conference?
  Yes! The pre-conference will be embedded in the doctoral studies at the doctoral student’s home university and its curriculum. The participants will be given a certificate with a recommendation for 5 ECTS that can be validated at the home university. The ultimate number of credit points depends upon the home university’s decision.
• Will it be possible to participate in both the NordMedia Conference and the pre-conference?
  Sure! We recommend you to do that. The participants of the pre-conference will be allowed to listen to the presentations at the NordMedia Conference without paying the conference fee. However, if PhD students want to present a paper at the NordMedia main conference, they are categorized as regular participants, which means that they need to register at the main conference and pay the conference fee. In that case, the registration will be managed in the main conference’s submission system. However, for the 2025 conference, there will be adjusted fee for PhD students.
• What can I submit to the pre-conference?
  The purpose of the pre-conference is to submit material that will be part of your PhD thesis, and receive feedback on it. You can submit a full academic paper (conference paper) or a book chapter related to your PhD thesis. Texts can be written either in English or Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian or Swedish). You will also be asked to add a brief description of the context of your work to your submission. You will receive detailed author instructions once you have been accepted as a participant in the pre-conference.
• Will it be possible to submit the same paper to the NordMedia Conference and to the doctoral pre-conference?
  Absolutely – but please note that the full participation in the NordMedia Conference (incl. paper presentation) involves a registration fee. The submission occurs via the main conference’s submission system. Submissions and registration to the pre-conference are handled via mail, while for the main conference these are managed via the submission system.
  Will the papers presented at the doctoral pre-conference be published?
  In accordance with the practices of the main conference, we do not publish the papers presented at the pre-conference. Instead, they are only shared in a closed space among the pre-conference participants and senior discussants. However, as many divisions and TGWs at the main conference compile special issues and other publications based on the presented and reviewed papers, there is also an opportunity to develop a new publication from the material of the pre-conference. This will depend on the topics covered. Anyway, we will support all doctoral students to find an appropriate publication channel for an article.
  
  

More Questions?

The pre-conference will now be organized for the fifth time. Previously, it has been organized in Tampere, Finland (2017), Malmö, Sweden (2019), Reykjavik/online (2021), and Bergen, Norway (2023).

For further information and inquiries, please contact Maarit Jaakkola, co-director at Nordicom and the course leader of the pre-conference (maarit.jaakkola@gu.se). Please note that submissions will be sent to the e-mail submissions@nordmedianetwork.org.