Cynthia Keza Birikudavyi, Development & Humanitarianism, University of Manchester (2025 Cohort)

When I began my PhD in fall 2025, one of the first pieces of advice I received from people who had already been through the process was to make use of the spaces where doctoral researchers can build community, exchange ideas and learn from one another. A PhD can be lonely, and conferences can offer a welcome reminder that research develops through conversation.

While looking for those opportunities, I came across DSA2026, Reimagining development: power, agency, and futures in an uncertain world, held at University College Dublin from July 8 to 10 2026. After mentioning it to my supervisors, I began exploring the conference program and found the roundtable Development’s quiet backbone: Workers, ethics, idealism and everyday survival.

The theme immediately resonated with my research and with professional experience in the humanitarian and development sector. Applying still felt a bit daunting; I was at the beginning of my PhD and had no research findings to present. However, I developed an abstract based on my emerging literature review and proposed methodology. My contribution, Navigating an uneven humanitarian space: Moral labour, power, and professional trajectories in aid organizations, was accepted, and I was also invited to chair the roundtable.

That combination offered a valuable middle ground: I could share where my thinking was developing while learning from researchers and practitioners approaching related questions from different perspectives.

Unfortunately, two days before I was due to travel, I injured my knee and could no longer walk, let alone travel from Manchester to Dublin. Disappointed was an understatement. I had been looking forward to experiencing the academic conference world in person. Fortunately, the conference was hybrid and, with the support of the roundtable convenors and conference organizers, I was able to change my participation to online, attend several sessions, chair the roundtable and deliver my presentation. Adaptability is, after all, a transferable skill…even when the transfer is from Dublin to my living room!

Although online attendance cannot fully replace the conversations and social events that happen in person, a little preparation helped me remain actively involved.

A few things made the experience work:

• Read the program carefully. Without the informal recommendations that come from speaking to people at the venue, I went through the abstracts in advance and created my own schedule. Where sessions overlapped, joining online also made it possible to move between them.
• Prepare beyond the chair’s script. For my roundtable, I read each participant’s biography and both versions of their abstract. Around ten days before the conference, I introduced myself by email, confirmed the proposed format, asked about any changes to their research, and invited them to identify two or three points they particularly wanted the audience to retain. I also asked about technical and accessibility requirements.
• Communicate the practical details. Once everyone had replied, I confirmed the speaking order, timing, meeting arrangements and presentation format, and suggested keeping an offline copy of slides available. A short reminder the day before helped ensure that everyone knew what to expect.
• Test the online setup. I logged in early, checked my camera and microphone, and coordinated with the convenors in the room so that we could follow questions from both audiences. The additional screen I had bought myself as a small gift at the beginning of my PhD proved especially useful: one screen held Zoom, while the other displayed my notes and panel information.

The experience also reinforced that first-year researchers do not need to have every answer before joining academic conversations. I presented the ideas guiding my research rather than completed findings, and the response was encouraging. I also made several connections with people working on concepts central to my project and continued those conversations on LinkedIn.

I still wish I could have been in Dublin. However, I did not feel excluded from the conference. I had space to contribute, learn and connect. More importantly, the experience reminded me that participation does not depend on having a finished project, or even on being physically present. Sometimes, it begins with finding a conversation that matters to you and deciding that your developing ideas belong within it.