Graduate Conferences aim to encourage stimulating interdisciplinary discussions among PhD students. They are organised every year, hosted by one of the partner universities, and normally include keynote speakers, expert panels, workshops, and networking sessions. The Department provides an additional-EBES (maximum of 2 during the PhD) which covers the flight. Other expenses are borne by the student. If you would like further information, please contact us by e-mail: [email protected].  

These are some of the most popular graduate conferences:

CEU is a member of the European Graduate Network (EGN), an organization that brings together graduate students of social sciences from eight leading European universities. EGN organizes a Graduate Network Conference every year, hosted by one of the partner universities.

These conferences give PhD students of the network universities the opportunity to present and discuss their research projects and to refine their theoretical and methodological approaches. They allow for in-depth discussions and thorough feedback.

The member institutions of the EGN network: 

The network was initiated by students and aims to provide through graduate conferences opportunities for PhD students to improve their research projects. It encourages and facilitates collaborative research of PhD students from the participating universities and aims at establishing academic linkages and cooperation. 

The conference aims at bringing together PhD-students from: the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Tilburg University; PhD Programme in Political and Social Sciences at UPF (Barcelona); the Doctoral School of Social Sciences (DSSS) at the University of Trento; the Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences (BAGSS); the Department of Educational Sociology, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University; and, the Network for the Advancement of Social and Political Studies (NASP) at the University of Milan. We welcome contributions specific to the fields of Sociology, Demography, Economics, and Political Science as well as interdisciplinary works. We invite submissions for a paper presentation, but we encourage early-stage doctoral students to consider submitting a proposal for a poster presentation about their dissertation project. Upon acceptance, we expect the student to send us a full paper (or poster). Organisers will assign one/two papers for which the student will have to act as a discussant together with a senior researcher. 

  • Annual Population Postgraduate Conference (PopFest)

    PopFest is an annual Population Studies conference for graduate, postgraduate and PhD students. It is organised by PhD students in order to bring together researchers from different Social Science disciplines such as Demography, Sociology, Social Statistics, Public Health, Social Policy, International Development, Human Geography, Urban and Landscape Planning, Social Anthropology, Gender studies and other related fields, with a focus on Population Studies.

PopFest provides a supportive, international environment for postgraduate students to present and discuss their work in front of their peers and to get feedback and ideas from fellow researchers.

Theoretical as well as empirical papers include, but are not limited to, the following topics: families, fertility, sexual and reproductive health, internal and international migration, mobility, ageing, life course, inequality, health, historical demography, mortality, and methodological approaches.

PopFest is traditionally organised in conjunction with the British Society for Population Studies (BSPS).

The workshop seeks to foster collaboration and insightful discussions among doctoral, early career researchers and established scholars. We welcome abstracts addressing the overall field of comparative social and public policy. We are especially interested in research addressing the politics of social or public policy change. The workshop is open to quantitative and qualitative approaches and to a variety of theoretical perspectives, such as institutionalism, political economy, policy analysis, political behaviour or party politics. We also invite research focused on more specific policies, such as family policy, minimum income protection, eco-social policies, labour regulation, and others. Comparative analyses are preferable although single case studies with a comparative relevance are also welcome.