What is Research? (2026) will explore various natures, purposes, and roles of research across disciplines, fields, and areas. The event will consider frameworks of systematic and creative inquiry, including methods, designs, analyses, discoveries, collaborations, dissemination, ethics, integrity, diversity, media/technologies, and information environments.

This year delves into research in its many forms, including searching, critically investigating, and re-examining existing knowledge, as well as emerging functions and procedures in machine intelligence and computation. It will highlight pluralities of research pathways, examining time-honored approaches and new ways of knowing, precedents, issues, and futures. It considers challenges and possibilities that researchers face in today’s rapidly changing world, and ways to promote ethical, inclusive, and impactful research.

The event celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Communication and Media Studies Doctoral Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.