Serendipity in Education

Call for papers

Two-day interdisciplinary symposium | University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts | 18-19 February 2027 - Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Serendipity Society

Serendipity is often associated with unexpected discoveries, chance encounters, and seemingly coincidental insights. Yet meaningful serendipitous discoveries rarely happen by chance alone: they depend on a “prepared mind” capable of noticing, connecting, interpreting, and acting upon the unexpected. As education increasingly takes place within digital environments shaped by search engines, recommendation systems, scraping tools, generative AI, and Large Language Models (LLMs), the question of how we can cultivate such a prepared mind has become particularly urgent. Algorithmic systems are highly effective at identifying and reproducing patterns, while serendipitous discovery may depend precisely on our ability to notice anomalies, make unexpected connections, and question what appears predictable. At the same time, students are embracing LLMs and other forms of generative AI while expressing concerns about over-reliance, trustworthiness, and the erosion of critical and creative practices.

A serendipity mindset may offer a productive way of approaching these tensions: rather than treating digital technologies simply as tools for finding information or producing answers, we can teach students to investigate how technologies, interfaces, algorithms, and human practices shape what can be noticed, overlooked, connected, or imagined.

This two-day event, organised at the University of Groningen’s Faculty of Arts in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Serendipity Society, invites contributions that explore the relationship between serendipity and education across disciplines, educational levels, technologies, and pedagogical contexts. We particularly welcome work that considers how serendipitous learning and discovery can be cultivated, taught, designed, assessed, or researched; how students and teachers develop the skills and dispositions associated with a serendipity mindset; and how serendipity intersects with creativity, critical thinking, innovation, algorithmic literacy, interdisciplinarity, and scholarly practice.

The symposium also includes a more general session that reflects the state of Serendipity Studies today, in view of the 10 year anniversary of the Serendipity Society. We will revisit important developments, influential ideas, and notable contributions from the past decade, while exploring new questions and opportunities for the years ahead. From theory to practice, the session aims to celebrate the growth of the field and our community, and stimulate conversation about their future directions.

The programme will combine research panels, interactive workshops, and opportunities for discussion and exchange, with contributions from established researchers alongside emerging scholars and students. We especially encourage experimental, practice-based, interdisciplinary, and critical perspectives, including reflections on teaching practices, educational experiments, digital methods, failures and unexpected discoveries. The event also connects to the Digital Creativity and Serendipity Lab, an interdisciplinary initiative exploring how students can learn to investigate digital technologies and develop transferable technical, social, and creative competencies through a serendipity mindset. Contributions may address, but are not limited to, the following questions:

• How can serendipity be taught?

• What does a “prepared mind” look like in contemporary education?

• Can serendipity be developed as a skill, disposition, or mindset?

• How do algorithms and generative AI enable or constrain serendipitous discovery?

• What happens when students learn to search for anomalies rather than patterns?

• How can educators balance the affordances of AI with the need for critical independence?

• How might serendipity contribute to innovation and interdisciplinary learning?

• And how can we design learning environments that leave space for productive accidents, unexpected connections, and intellectual surprise?

Submission guidelines

We invite abstracts of 300–500 words from any relevant discipline. We welcome proposals for individual papers, workshops, demonstrations, and other interactive formats. Abstracts should be submitted in the following format:

(i) Title

 A concise title that captures the focus of your contribution.

(ii) Abstract

 A single paragraph of 300–500 words describing your proposed contribution, including its central question or argument, approach, and relevance to the theme of Serendipity in Education. If a demonstration/interactive format is to be presented, please add practical requirements.

(iii) Keywords

 Please provide 3–5 keywords.

(iv) Short bio

 Please include a short biographical statement introducing your academic or professional background and current research or interests.

We particularly welcome contributions from junior researchers that cross disciplinary boundaries and encourage proposals from scholars working in the humanities, arts, education, digital culture, information studies, media studies, computer science, and related fields. Accepted contributions will be published in an online proceedings volume that will be made openly available through Zenodo and assigned a DOI.

Possible Themes include:

• Teaching and learning serendipity

• The “prepared mind” and serendipity mindsets

• Serendipity, creativity, and innovation

• Generative AI, LLMs, and unexpected discovery

• Algorithms, recommendation systems, and serendipitous encounters

• Critical approaches to AI in education

• Anomalies, errors, and productive failure

• Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary education

• Serendipity in research and scholarly practice

• Digital humanities and computational methods

• Designing for serendipity in educational environments

• Student experiences of unexpected learning

• Interfaces, platforms, and the architecture of discovery

We invite you to join us in asking not only how education can prepare students for an increasingly algorithmic world, but how education can prepare them to look beyond what algorithms predict—to notice the unexpected, make connections, and discover what they were not looking for.

Submission deadline: 15th of November, 2026

Event: Two-day conference and workshop, 18-19 February 2027

Location: University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts, Groningen, The Netherlands

Organised in celebration of: 10 years of the Serendipity Society and in collaboration with the Digital Creativity and Serendipity Lab. Supported by a NKO Comenius Teaching Fellow grant.

Symposium fee: 100 euros. Please note that fee reductions may apply for students, early-career researchers, and participants from lower-income economies.

Submit abstracts to: accidentsagacity [at] gmail.com

Contact/Questions?

Please contact Sabrina Sauer at the Serendipity Society via accidentsagacity [at] gmail.com in case of questions about the symposium or in case of questions/queries about the participation fee.