The 9th conference of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW) was held in subtropical conditions from 19th -21st June 2017 in Egham, UK. More than 400 participants from over 40 countries gathered at Royal Holloway, University of London to deliberate 'what teachers of academic writing can offer the global academy in terms of imaginative, creative and principled responses to the increasingly international, diverse and marketised reality of higher education' (EATAW 2017). As two of the co-organisers of the conference, and guest editors of this special issue, we want to thank our colleagues in the Centre for the Development of Academic Skills and other supporting departments at Royal Holloway for the assistance and hard work that a conference of this scale required. We are also grateful for the guidance of the EATAW board and the planning committee of the 2015 conference. Lisa Ganobscik-Williams and George Ttoouli are due our deep gratitude for their expert guidance, patient understanding and timely responses, despite the competing pressures and multiple responsibilities that both they and we have experienced. Many thanks go to all those who acted as reviewers, and of course to the contributors, who offered so many compelling and thought-provoking contributions and were responsive and timely throughout the review, revision and proofreading process.The conference theme, 'Academic Writing Now: Pedagogy, Policy and Practice', was intended to generate contributions articulating a response to the shifting realities of Higher Education at the levels of policy, pedagogy and practice. The call for proposals was enthusiastically received, and the conference included 168 contributions in the form of 116 paper presentations, 8 symposia, 15 workshops, 20 poster presentations and 9 Lightning Talks. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, the themes most represented were pedagogy and practice, with some very insightful contributions on policy. Our three keynote speakers offered challenging perspectives on each of these three themes; their talks will be available on the EATAW 2017 website until autumn 2019, for those who wish to revisit them. 1
EATAW 2017 Keynote SpeechesProf. Rowena Murray launched the conference with the recognition of the expertise that our profession offers to the academy, and acknowledged the difficulties inherent in having a voice in policy. She posited the 'retreat' model that she and others have developed for academic writing as a possible means of disengaging from everyday activities to create space for policywriting. However, her problematisation of the various modes of disengagement that writers seek in order to prioritise writing not only articulated the scope of the challenge, but also identified a accessed here.