This paper examines the role played by a student-organized research conference in the age of research-led teaching and active learning. Drawing on our experiences of organizing two departmental conferences in Geography in March 2016 and March 2017, we begin to outline how institutional support and funding for student-led "Changemakers" projects can not only introduce students to specific aspects of research (in the case of our conference, to disseminating and communicating research findings), but also encourage collaboration and mutual support outside of formal staff-student hierarchies of teaching, learning and marking.