Our panellists aren’t in the business of changing just lightbulbs, they’re trying to roll out change across their whole institution. Tasked with developing digital skills and creativity through pedagogic change under the auspices of the Adobe Creative Campus programme, our panellists will talk through the theory and practicalities of moving whole-institution agendas forward and what it takes to inspire meaningful change.

As the UK Government launches the Local Innovation Partnership Fund and announces major changes to the Higher Education Innovation Fund, it is clear that universities are being asked to fundamentally sharpen their approach to driving economic growth. The Data City, Metro Dynamics and Favier Ltd have launched a new partnership to help universities answer the question: “what’s your university industrial strategy?”

In this interactive workshop, you’ll be able to see how institutions can access Real Time data to understand their innovation footprint by geography and by sector, before working with institutions to align this with 1) their future strategic direction across research, knowledge exchange, talent and capital development and 2) the economic priorities of both local, regional and national government. Using real-world examples from your universities, you’ll also be able to work through the process of identifying those “sweet-spots” where university economic intent matches local and national government priorities. 

In this interactive unconference-style session, we’ll hear from a panel of research and evaluation experts from across the sector about what’s currently being explored, including emerging trends and evolving requirements. We’ll then break into group activities to consider: what are we curious about, and what remains poorly understood in higher education? Participants will be encouraged to think boldly about their own research agendas – anything goes, no holds barred. We’ll wrap up by reconvening for brief summaries from each group and reflecting on possible next steps.

They said it would never take off, but now radical collaboration is the hot topic of the moment. Yet despite the widespread interest in different ways of merging or otherwise combining institutions – to create economies of scale, and new offers to students and regions – there remain cultural, legal and structural barriers to making radical collaborations work. KPMG and Mills & Reeve have undertaken in-depth work on the strategic and legal implications of bringing HE institutions together – and in this session you’ll have the chance to think through the various options available, what opportunities and risks might emerge, and the implications for ways of working and student experience. 

The Venn – a forum for university leaders who face outward – works on a simple premise: higher education reputation is founded in deeds, not just words. Too often UK higher education finds itself on the back foot in the public conversation, treated as a political football, and expected to have an answer to various complicated social ills. So how do we respond?

Coming together in defence and celebration of higher education, this session, chaired by The Venn co-founder Alex Favier, will explore some of the critical reputational challenges facing higher education institutions and work through ideas for how to tackle them working across and between different professional disciplines.

This session is about solving problems using the resources you already have, but used more effectively.

Solving problems in higher education institutions is really hard. Universities are these big unwieldy public bureaucracies that are full of people doing their best in structures that don’t always serve them, students, or staff.

And it’s not for lack of knowledge. Universities are full of some of the most committed, talented, and hard-working people that you could ever hope to meet. The problem is that leaders are stretched to capacity, few people have a 360 degree view of their organisations, and fixing one thing can often surface another problem.

In this collaborative session facilitated by the Policy.Partners team we will look at the big questions in your institutions and set out shared approaches to finding out the answers. This is a collaborative session about framing, path dependencies, strategies, culture, and it will leave you with approaches that will help you back at work.

Higher education institutions have always had a responsibility to protect freedom of expression, and doing so has always posed a tricky balancing act of upholding academic freedom whilst maintaining the safety of their communities. But in recent years, with additional regulatory requirements added into the mix, and growing global political polarisation, the challenge to meet harassment duties and protect lawful free speech has become increasingly contested, complex and resource-intensive.

With Neil Chakraborti, Director of the Centre for Hate Studies and Professor of Criminology at the University of Leicester and Sammy Li, Assistant Director of Student Affairs (Postgraduate and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion). Come ready to challenge your own views and debate how universities should draw the line.

If it’s your first time at the festival, you’re new to higher education, or just attending alone and want to meet some other delegates – grab a coffee and come along and meet the team, and find out how to make the most of your experience.