We are looking forward to hosting the next
International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology
very soon!
SysMus26—the 19th International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology—is being held this coming year at Durham University, UK, July 22–24 (Wed–Fri), 2026!
We are offering a hybrid conference to include those who wish to come in-person or virtually attend online.
Important dates:
- 30 January 2026: Abstract submission deadline
- 13 March 2026: Acceptance notifications
- 15 June 2026: Abstract revision & Presentation material submission deadline
- 22-24 July 2026: SysMus26 in Durham!
What is SysMus?
SysMus conferences are annual, international, student-run events. They are designed to bring together advanced students and early career researchers and provide a platform to present, meet with, and discuss our work with our peers.
Specifically, SysMus is committed to representing an array of topics from various sub-fields of systematic musicology and music science — a non-exhaustive list includes: music perception, music cognition, music psychology, music sociology, music therapy, music information retrieval, music technology, musical acoustics, music modelling, music education, music and culture, music and semiotics, music philosophy, music theory and analysis, and music composition.
In line with this, we encourage submissions from quantitative, qualitative, and practice-based methods and outputs.
Submission Guidelines
Proposals should include a title, author(s), affiliation(s), abstract (300 words), and 3–5 keywords.
Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words excluding references.
Authors should avoid identifying themselves within the abstracts (self-citation allowed), as acceptance will be determined by anonymous peer review.
Please include the following headings in your abstract, observing the format appropriate for your research:
For empirical research:
- Background
- Aims
- Methods
- Results
- Conclusions
For theoretical/practice research/reviews:
- Background
- Aims
- Main Contribution
- Implications
You are required to indicate a preference for the presentation mode (long-form and/or short-form, details below) in the submission form. Abstract guidelines are the same for both presentation modes.
After the reviewing process, authors will be given the opportunity to revise their abstracts based on the feedback received.
Presentation modes:
Long-form: Talks
→ 12-minute presentation time, 5-minute discussion.
Talks, live and virtual, are allocated a total of 20-minutes each: a maximum of 12-minutes for the presentation, 5-minutes for questions and discussion, and 3-minutes switch-over time for the next talk.
Short-form: Lightning Talks
→ 2-minute presentation time, 15-minute joint discussion.
This year, instead of poster presentations, we are holding Lightning Talk sessions; a collection of five video presentations with a joint roundtable discussion for the presenters.
Presenters will be grouped by topic (by our team), and their videos compiled to be played one after another. Then, all session presenters—virtual and in-person—will collectively answer (and ask!) discussion questions.
Lightning Talk sessions are allocated a total of 30-minutes each: a maximum of 2-minutes for each video presentation (10-minutes combined duration), 15-minutes for questions and discussion, and 5-minutes switch-over time for the next event.
Upcoming news and information will be released by our organising team in due time — keep an eye out for updates!
Organising Team
Co-directors
Committee
advisory team
Music & Science 