Ealing’s University of West London (UWL) brought together Black doctoral researchers from across the UK last month as it hosted the first national academic conference organised by the Black PhD Collective.
The conference, held on 12 June 2026, was co-hosted with the Black PhD Collective, the UK’s first national network supporting Black and Black-mixed doctoral researchers. It welcomed PhD students, academics and professionals from universities across the country to present research, exchange ideas and build professional networks.
The programme included 20 oral presentations and five poster presentations covering subjects including health, education, computing, sustainability, law and media studies. Delegates also took part in workshops on networking and grant writing, while a panel discussion explored the opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence beyond academia.
Professor Caroline Lafarge, head of the graduate school at UWL, said: “It was a great honour to welcome the Black PhD Collective network at UWL and host their very first academic conference. I was very impressed by the diversity and quality of the work presented and it was a real pleasure to meet so many talented doctoral researchers.”
 brought together Black doctoral researchers from across the UK last month as it hosted the first national academic conference organised by the Black PhD Collective.){kind=link}