In 2018, an initiative for student collaboration between the RMA and the KVNM was established. It allowed students to receive financial support to present at our associations’ student conferences. This initiative has been continued since 2023. In even-numbered years, up to three students from universities in the Netherlands and Flanders receive financial support to present their work at the BFE/RMA Research Students' Conference. The next edition will take place at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on 6-8 January 2026.

We congratulate the following selected students:

• Joël Buijnsters (UvA), ‘Music Education in Secondary Special Education’. This paper examines the gap between music education in secondary special education in the Netherlands and other types of secondary education, and what investments are needed.
• Lilita Dunska (UvA), ‘Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the Speech-to-Song (STS) Illusion: Insights from Balinese Gamelan Practitioners’. This paper takes a music cognition approach to study the functioning of the STS illusion in Balinese gamelan musicians in comparison with results from studies of Western musicians.

The full programme can be found here. We wish the students every success with their presentations and look forward to the conference.