Briggs-Washington Bursary

CILIP Conference 2025

CILIP Conference is taking place on 2–3 July 2025 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole. It is one of the largest and most eagerly anticipated events in the library and information sector, and we are offering one full delegate bursary place including reasonable UK travel expenses.

The programme is now live - it’s set to be a rich two days of knowledge sharing and discussion. This year’s headline programme theme is 'North Star: Asserting our ethical principles and leading through change', with sessions exploring ethical implications of emerging technologies and how we can build our influence to support strategy and policy creation.

Taking place over two days in Birmingham, the event brings together established, emerging and aspiring leaders to discuss and explore challenges and opportunities in the sector, including:

• AI Innovation
• AI & Copyright
• Crisis Management
• Data literacy and consent
• KM & IM: Grenfell - Lessons Learned
• Advocating for the Sector

What the bursary includes:

- One full delegate place which includes attendance at both days of the conference with access to all sessions, refreshment breaks, and lunches, plus the drinks reception and dinner on Wednesday night.
- Accommodation for night of Wednesday 2nd July at Hilton Birmingham Metropole, plus the option of CLSIG funded accommodation for the night of Tuesday 1st July if required for travel reasons to be in Birmingham for 10am on Wednesday.
- Reasonable UK travel expenses to get to the conference venue and home again.

Requirements:

Applicants must: 
- be members of CLSIG; and 
- have agreement to attend the conference from their manager.

The bursary recipient is expected to write an article/conference report to be shared with the CILIP team. The aim of the article is to reflect on and develop ideas that came out of the conference (rather than simply describe the experience). This article is due by 14th August 2025.

How to apply:

To submit your application for the bursary place send a statement of no more than 300 words explaining why you wish to attend the conference, and how you believe it will benefit your professional practice. It would be great to mention any sessions in which you have a particular interest.

Send your application to chair.clsig@cilip.org.uk by 6:00pm BST on Monday 26th May 2025. The recipient will be announced on Wednesday 4th June 2025.

Applications will be anonymised by the CLSIG Chair then and CILIP staff will judge the award of this bursary on behalf of CLSIG due to current committee hiatus.

We are particularly interested in hearing from CLIG members who have never been to the CILIP Conference before and:

• are LIS students; or,
• are new professionals with less than 5 years experience; or,
• feel underrepresented within the profession, or,
• wouldn’t ordinarily be able to go for financial reasons e.g. low earning or unwaged members.

We do not require any proof from applicants regarding these options in your applications. We trust your integrity.

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The Briggs-Washington Bursary is offered in memory of two outstanding members of the Commercial, Legal & Scientific Information Group: Norman Briggs and Bert Washington.