The conference's aim is to stimulate debate and advance the policy, practice, and discourse around the future of higher education. It is therefore being formatted in a discursive format rather than 'traditional' paper presentations. Keynote speakers include Richard Slaughter and Ziauddin Sardar.

Presenters will be grouped in threes, and will have a specialist Chair. In five minutes maximum, they will present the key findings of their papers and the key issues that it raises. The remainder of the forty-minute session will be discussion with the participants, debate, and reflection on the outcomes of the papers to make them meaningful to the audience. Full papers will be available online three weeks prior to the opening of the conference and should be circa 6,000 words.

The following journals are supporting this event by considering full papers that meet their criteria either for inclusion in a conference special edition or for general inclusion as appropriate: Futures, Research in Education, Policy Futures in Education, International Journal of Learning Technology, and the Journal of Research in International Education.

Virtual attendance at the conference will allow access to the papers in advance, with the facility to propose questions for the discussion presentation. Participants will also have access to podcasts of the discussions themselves, and then be included in the additions to the discussions that will operate through discussion boards will continue for a week after the conference presentations. The discussions around the presentations will be recorded and available as podcasts shortly after they take place.

Abstract submission deadline is 31 January 2010.