SPA Conference 2023: Registration and Abstract Submission Open

For 2023, the conference will be entirely face-to-face and will provide an opportunity to meet friends, old and new, as well as making connections for future collaborations and discussing the development of our discipline. The plenary and keynote sessions will be recorded and added to the SPA website.

Amidst the turmoil of the cost-of-living crisis, inflation, post-Brexit trade, and the challenges facing many households, the 2023 conference theme will be ‘Rising inequalities and poverty: What role for Social Policy? we are also aware that for many households, the legacy of Covid still casts a very real economic and social shadow over people’s lives. For some demographics in society, this shadow is more readily experienced. This comes at a time when rather than recovering from Covid and the reaping the benefits of Brexit, many are afraid to turn on their heating, food bank demand has increased, and precarious working practices increasingly shape our economy. This will be an opportunity for us to examine the experiences of many households, as well as reflect on the role for Social Policy to analyse as well as to inform.

The conference is an opportunity for those working in policy, for academics, as well as for early career researchers and postgraduate research students to present findings and engage in discussion.

Submission of proposed papers and symposia

We invite proposals for papers and symposia (three or more papers on a particular theme) which address these issues and challenges, in connection with any area of social policy.  Papers may be comparative or focus on specific national contexts, historical or future-facing, as well as examining specific areas of policy, interventions, or absences of action.  As always with the SPA conference, we welcome the broadest range of focal points and approaches – but these are areas and topics which may resonate especially strongly with the overall conference theme:

• Economic impacts of Covid and its legacy
• The ‘cost of living’ crisis
• Austerity and welfare retrenchment
• Experiences of poverty
• Communities and neighbourhoods
• The Brexit dividend
• Political ideology
• Policy making – whose voice?
• What does the ‘housing crisis’ actually look like?
• The voluntary sector picking up the pieces
• All in the same storm, but sailing different boats – Intersectionality and demographics
• The reinvention of trickle-down economics
• Taxes and benefits
• Media portrayals and hegemony/ies of poverty
• Other related ideas are always welcomed

For papers, abstracts should be 200-400 words. Proposals for symposia should consist of a title and 200-word outline of the aims of the symposium, as well as details of the organiser, contributors (including email addresses) and abstracts of 200-400 words.

All abstracts and symposium proposals will be reviewed by reviewers from our Programme Committee prior to acceptance.

Abstract submission

Abstracts individual papers and symposia can be submitted here: https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/5469/submitter

Abstracts will be reviewed by the conference team and responses provided in due course.

Abstract submission closes Monday 17 April 2023

In case of queries please contact: conference2023@social-policy.org.uk

Conference Registration

You can register your place for the SPA 2023 Conference here.

Conference Fees

Please note – Early Bird rate ends Friday 28th of April 2023

Registration Type	SPA member (£)	Non-member (£)
Early bird – 4* hotel – full conf	450	575
Early bird – halls – full conf	425	450
Early bird – day with formal meal	180	240
Early bird – day with BBQ	170	230
Standard – 4* hotel – full conf	475	600
Standard – halls – full conf	450	575
Standard – day with formal meal	210	270
Standard – day with BBQ	200	260
PGR – hotel – full conf	220	230
PGR – halls – full conf	200	210
PGR – day with formal meal	150	160
PGR – day with BBQ	130	140