As with the academic letter of acceptance, the following template was used for those postgraduate students who required a formal letterhead style invitation to help secure funding to attend the conference.
address
date
Dear Name
As Academic Chair of the 5th International Digital Arts and Culture Conference (melbourneDAC) I would like to invite you to present your paper 'paperTitleHere' at the conference in Melbourne during May of this year. This paper will make a valuable contribution to the conference, however I would also like to invite you to consider being a session chair during the event, and also to participate in a postgraduate mentoring scheme that we are developing.
Many PhD students find that their PhD research concentrates on their thesis and that little professional development, outside of the demands of research, occurs. This is obviously inadequate in the contemporary academic world where teaching, administrative, managerial and broader academic skills are necessary. As a contribution to this sort of professional development melbourneDAC intends to mentor PhD students through encouraging their contribution to the conference academically (through the traditional avenue of presenting research via essay and giving a paper), as well as inviting them to manage sessions, and finally through a series of informal postgraduate events designed to assist new researchers to develop viable international networks of peers.
To achieve this I am specifically inviting postgraduate students who have papers accepted for the conference to participate in these events to ensure their success, and to maximise the outcomes for postgraduate participants. melbourneDAC is a major international conference and so represents an excellent opportunity for young and emerging researchers to develop broader professional academic skills, and as Academic Chair I fully intend the conference to achieve these outcomes. Your participation would be welcomed, and as Chair I hope you are able to accept my invitation to participate.
Yours sincerely
Adrian Miles
MelbourneDAC conference chair