2027 Emerging Creatives Student Summit: POWER
About the Summit
a2ru is delighted to announce that this year’s Emerging Creatives Student Summit will be hosted by the University of Maryland on its College Park campus March 18-21, 2027. This year’s theme is “Power.”
Power comes from a solar panel or burning fuel, an idea or a group of people in motion. A work of art is powerful; so is a dictator. Power lends the capacity to control events and even people; power feeds, inspires, motivates and detonates. Where does power come from? What can we do with it? What should we do with it? (What would Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben say?)
Emerging Creatives is a three-day collaborative experience in which students form small cross-disciplinary teams to explore a specific area of the Summit’s theme. Over the course of the event, teams make something that represents their exploration: a syllabus, cookbook, podcast, app, opera, pair of shoes, urban blueprint, pop-up store, musical score, website…the list of possible outcomes is endless.
At Emerging Creatives, students not only envision and create their project; they also participate in hands-on experiences related to the Summit theme, meet extraordinary interdisciplinary thinkers, practice presenting their work, and exchange ideas about their project with peers and experts. Students also build collaboration skills in micro-workshops with a2ru staff.
Learn More About Emerging Creatives at Our Information Session
Join us on Friday, September 18 from 1-2pm Eastern/10-11am Pacific for an information session with a2ru Research Program Manager Veronica Stanich, who facilitates the Emerging Creatives Student Summit each year. Learn more about the Emerging Creatives experience, student outcomes, and the nominations process, and get your questions answered! Registration is free and open to all; please sign up using the link below.
Nominating Students
a2ru member institutions are eligible to nominate up to 4 students to attend the 2026 Emerging Creatives Student Summit. Graduate students and undergraduate students in their junior year or above are eligible.
Departmental members may send students for $200 each (a 50% discount on the non-member rate).
In order to maintain the interdisciplinary nature of Emerging Creatives, institutions should nominate equal number of students from within and outside the arts. The contributions of students from disciplines in the sciences, engineering, social sciences, business and other fields are essential to the success of the Summit.
Space permitting, non-member institutions may nominate students to attend Emerging Creatives; the registration fee for non-member students is $400.
If there is an Emerging Creatives Lead listed on the profile page for your institution (see https://a2ru.org/about/our-members/ and click on the name of your institution), only that person should submit this form for your institution. Contact your Emerging Creatives Lead for information on nominating a student from your institution. If there is no Emerging Creatives Lead listed at your institution or if you are at a non-member institution, contact a2ruconnect@umich.edu for information.
Please submit your nominations by November 6, 2026. Please note that nominations received after November 6 will not be considered for Travel Grants.
We will contact eligible student nominees with acceptance and attendance information on or after November 8, 2026.
Funding
There is no registration fee for students from most member institutions to attend Emerging Creatives (Departmental members pay $200 per student). However, we expect students’ institutions to pay for their travel expenses: travel, lodging, and meals. We have a limited amount of funds available from a grant program to assist Partner and Advocate member schools and students with these expenses.
Students at a2ru Partner and Advocate member schools are eligible for Travel Grants. Travel Grants ($250) are intended to cover travel and lodging costs. Nominators will identify in the nomination form (linked above in the “Nominating Students” section) whether students from their institutions should be considered for Travel Grants. Travel Grants will be distributed across eligible member institutions.
Funds from this program are paid directly to students, but we make sure to let nominating institutions know the timing and amount of awards to offset costs for the department, or to enable the institution to send additional students (up to the limit).
Travel & Lodging
Students should make travel arrangements so they are available to participate in Emerging Creatives activities starting at 4pm on Thursday, March 18 (registration will open at 3pm) and ending on Sunday, March 21 at 1:30pm. Travel and hotel arrangements are the responsibility of the participating students and/or their home institutions.
The Washington DC metro area (which includes College Park) is served by three major airports: Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall (BWI), Washington-Dulles (IAD), and Regan National (DCA). BWI is north of College Park near Baltimore. DCA is just south of Washington, DC in Virginia. IAD is in Virginia and the furthest from College Park.
Hotel information for participating students will be available in early fall.