How to take part

Ways to participate

The symposium is free to take part in, and there are several different ways you can join in:

• Attend the live keynote conversations and workshops. Find out about our keynotes here and see our programme here.
• Submit an image and written, audio or video reflection. Find out how to submit an image and story here.
• Explore the images and stories contributed by others. You can see the streams that images and stories will be organised around here.
• Join the asynchronous discussions in discussion forums for each of the streams.
• Post about the conference on social media using the hashtag #HopeinHE26.

You do not need to submit an image in order to participate. You are very welcome to just attend one or more of the the live sessions and/or explore the participant contributions and join the online discussions.

Register for daily emails during the symposium to receive updates throughout the event.

How the symposium works

The symposium takes place online from 9–20 November 2026 (New Zealand time), combining live Zoom sessions with image galleries and forum discussions you can join in your own time. It is participatory and conversational rather than a traditional academic conference.

Live sessions and registration

You are warmly invited to attend as many keynote conversations, workshops and other live sessions as interest you.

Please register separately for each live Zoom session you would like to attend. Registration is free, adds sessions to your calendar and helps us manage attendance and keep the online event secure. Find session details and registration links in the symposium programme.

Explore and discuss contributions in your own time

The six thematic streams link to web pages displaying galleries of participants’ images and reflections. Each web page replicates a “conference panel”. The pages all have an online discussion forum below the contributions where you can share questions, ideas and responses at a time that suits you.

If you have submitted an image, we encourage you to join the discussion on the page featuring your contribution, and to explore and comment on other pages too. Everyone is welcome to participate in these conversations, whether or not they submitted an image.

Preparing to participate

There is no need to prepare a formal presentation. We invite you to explore the images and reflections, consider how they connect with your own experiences of hope in higher education, and join live and forum-based discussions in whatever way feels meaningful to you.

There is no expectation that everyone will contribute in the same way. Different forms and levels of participation are welcome, and you do not need to attend the whole symposium.

If you have already submitted an image and reflection

Your contribution will appear on the symposium website within one of the six thematic streams. The images and reflections are starting points for shared conversation, not work you need to formally present or defend. The discussion forum is located at the bottom of the page featuring your contribution.

Planning your participation

To get the most out of the symposium we have created a reflective workbook, which you can work through at your own pace. Download this for web here, or for print here.

Participation is flexible throughout the two weeks: join as many or as few sessions and online conversations as your schedule allows. The full programme has live session times, details and registration links, while the streams page is your starting point for exploring participant contributions and discussion forums.

We hope this will be an opportunity to connect, reflect, learn from one another and collectively explore what pedagogies of hope might look like in practice.

Submit an image and story

We invite you to contribute one photograph, artwork, drawing, collage, or other image that says something about how you understand or practise hope as an educator, in the broadest sense.

Alongside your image, please provide either a short written reflection or a two- to three-minute audio or video explanation. This might tell the story behind the image, describe a particular practice or experience, raise a question, or reflect on something you are still trying to work out.

Your contribution does not need to be a polished example of “good practice.” We are interested in uncertainty, difficulty, tensions, experiments and things that have not quite worked, as well as examples of practices that have.

We would especially love to see images made or found by you. Please make sure you have permission or a Creative Commons licence to use the image you submit. There will be space to share attribution when you submit the image. While AI-generated images are permitted, we encourage you to submit messy, in-progress, and imperfect work (which can be more generative than generative AI!).

Who can contribute?

Educators, professional staff, students, and others interested in thinking about hope and higher education are all welcome. You do not need to already work on hope as a research topic.

What happens to the contributions?

All submitted images and stories will be organised into one of the symposium’s six thematic streams. During the symposium, participants will be able to browse the contributions, respond to them in their own time, and join asynchronous forum discussions alongside the live keynote conversations and workshops.

Ideas you might explore

Your contribution might connect with one or more of these questions, or take us somewhere else entirely:

• What does hope mean in your educational work?
• Where and how is hope practised in teaching, assessment, course design or relationships?
• How does hope work collectively through solidarity, shared struggle, mutual support or action?
• How is hope understood through Indigenous, decolonial and other knowledge traditions?
• Who gets to practise hope, and from what position?
• What emotions sit alongside hope — grief, anger, fear, exhaustion, joy, care or uncertainty?
• When is hope unhelpful, burdensome or politically limiting?
• What might hope make possible in higher education?