April 23–25, 2026
University of Oregon Portland
Co-sponsored by IAMCR
What is Research? (2026) will bring together scholars to explore various natures, purposes, and roles of research across disciplines, fields, and areas. The event will consider frameworks of systematic and creative inquiry, including methods, designs, analyses, discoveries, collaborations, dissemination, ethics, integrity, pluralism, media/technologies, and information environments.
The thirteenth What is…? gathering delves into research in its many forms, including searching, critically investigating, and re-examining existing knowledge, as well as emerging functions and procedures in machine intelligence and computation. It will highlight pluralities of research pathways, examining time-honored approaches and new ways of knowing, precedents, issues, and futures. It considers challenges and possibilities that researchers face in today’s rapidly changing world, and ways to promote ethical, accessible, and impactful research.
Scholars, government and community officials, scientists, artists, students, filmmakers, grassroots community organizations, public sector and industry professionals, and the public are invited to collaborate. Join us in a journey to explore the interconnected world of research from a transdisciplinary perspective. Share your insights, experiences, and innovative approaches as we foster vibrant dialogues that integrate a wide range of perspectives and knowledge.
Presentations / panels / installations / experiential art may include these topics (as well as others):
- How does research and creative scholarship emerge from inquiry? How do they impact society?
- What are relationships between theory, method, and practice in research?
- What are qualitative, quantitative, multimethod, multimodal, participatory & arts-based approaches?
- What influences research design and data analysis?
- What are issues involved in validation (e.g., reproducibility, replicability, and cross-validating)?
- What are various modes of collaboration and how can they be organized?
- What are some considerations in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research?
- How are integrations of natural & artificial intelligence with quantum computing affecting research?
- What are environmental considerations of developments in machine learning & large data centers?
- How is research disseminated? How does it effectively engage publics and inform policy-making?
- How are ethics imbricated in research and how can researchers conduct work with integrity?
- What are benefits and challenges of compliance (e.g., privacy, security, review boards)?
- How can research address global challenges (e.g., health, inequality, poverty, climate change)?
- How is research used to drive solutions-based approaches and what are the challenges involved?
- How does research in academia differ from research in industry and/or community?
- What are the obstacles involved in translating findings into action?
- What issues are involved in targeted, universal, and targeted universal approaches to research?
- What are criteria and implications of various forms of research funding?
- How are meta-analyses and systematic reviews engaging human-machine collaboration?
- How can research education be integrated into teaching and learning? How are next generations of researchers being trained?
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Send 150-200 word abstracts for papers / panels / art / experiences
by NOVEMBER 11, 2025 to: Janet Wasko - jwasko@uoregon.edu
The event celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.