Once again this conference was a great success. The keynote presentations are on YouTube: one from Jacqueline Priego Hernández, plus the launch of the Journal of Creative Research Methods, and one from Amanda Beswick-Taylor. Around 140 people came and shared hugs and ideas across sectors and disciplines, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. People described it as a well organised and structured, smoothly run, and professionally managed event. They praised the supportive, safe, positive space fostering connection and creativity. Delegates found it to be a friendly, inclusive, collegial, and intellectually stimulating environment. Terms frequently used in the feedback included “outstanding,” “fantastic,” “excellent,” “best-organised,” and “inspiring.”

Of course it wasn’t perfect; no conference ever could be. The most common complaint was about presenters over-running because we don’t use session chairs. We will change this next year. There were two main reasons for not using session chairs: first, we thought people would be able to manage their own time, and second, we don’t have the administrative capacity to organise session chairs. There were some helpful suggestions in the feedback, such as asking presenters to act as chairs for each other within sessions, or asking for a volunteer chair or timekeeper from the audience. We will discuss all of the suggestions and come up with a better plan for 2026.

Most people thought the ticket prices were fair for the quality of the conference and the venue. Some people asked for bursaries, which we would love to provide, but we are reliant on sponsorship for these. The National Centre for Research Methods kindly sponsored bursaries in 2023 and 2024, but they were not able to do this again in 2025 and we could only secure sponsorship for two bursaries this year. We are continuing to explore sponsorship opportunities for bursaries in 2026; we do have one potential sponsor, but haven’t had confirmation from them yet. (If you want to sponsor some bursaries, please get in touch!)

There were also a few calls for more transparency about where the money goes. Most of the money goes to pay for the venue. Every autumn I sign a contract with the venue for a five-figure sum, which I must pay the following year whether or not the conference goes ahead, whether or not we sell enough tickets to cover the cost. We also pay the people who manage the online conference for us, because none of us have the skills to do that ourselves. They are very skilled and experienced, and were complimented in this year’s feedback. Most of the organising team help with the conference as part of their salaried jobs, so we don’t have to pay them from the conference takings (which is just as well because we couldn’t function otherwise). All of this means the conference is in quite a precarious financial position.

In 2023 the conference only just covered its costs; in 2024 and 2025 it made a small surplus. For the last four years two of us have been working entirely unpaid: me, and Nik who does the tech support at the conference and last year spent a couple of weeks writing a bespoke online booking system which means we no longer have to pay to use someone else’s system. We intend to continue building the surplus to enable us to (a) pay ourselves a reasonable rate for the work we do and (b) create a financial cushion big enough to protect us from loss if we had a year where we sold few tickets or the conference had to be cancelled because of an unforeseen event such as another global pandemic. We may also need to pay a part-time conference administrator at some point in the future. And if we ever have enough money to offer bursaries ourselves, we certainly will.

One thing that came through strongly in the feedback was that one person’s compliment is another person’s complaint.

“Loved all the vegan options.”

“Too much of the food was vegan.”

“Wonderfully inclusive!”

“Babies are disruptive.”

“Great to have so much space for conversations.”

“Too much informal chat time, can we have more structured sessions please?”

And so on.

We are never going to get everything right for everyone, but we do aim to get as much right for as many people as possible. So we will continue to record, read, analyse, and consider all the feedback we receive, to try to make this conference better year on year.

The unsolicited feedback on social media was heartwarming. Two people who attended, Kate Hawkins and Shahreen Chowdhury from Pamoja Communications, even made a short animation reflecting on their experiences at the conference, which you can see here.

We have two terrific keynote speakers lined up for 2026, and the call for proposals is out now; deadline midnight GMT on 30 November. Also we have a new initiative this year: One Slide Five Minutes, which we hope will make up for our inability to have posters (there is nowhere to put them in the venue unless we hire an extra room, and that would push ticket prices up). Information about OSFM is available here.

Hope to see you in Manchester next September!