The third conference organised by the Centre for Excellence in Preparing for Academic Practice will be held at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, from 13 to 15 December 2009. The event will be focused on the development of holistic depictions of academic careers - ones conceptualized as more than teaching and/or research. We seek a wide range of creative responses to this idea, but initial suggestions include academic practice as career development, mentoring, academic climate, relationships between academic work and wider life, academic writing and discourse, and emotions or affect in academic work.