Previous Conferences
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Together through Change: Community, Belonging and Partnership
Shared Values, Local Voices: Building Neurodiversity Student Support Together at Lancaster University Ghana
Keynotes: Cynthia Forson and Kendi Guantai
What does neurodiversity support look like when UK disability law, Ghanaian socio‑cultural realities, and transnational higher education intersect? This session uses Lancaster University Ghana as a case study to explore diagnosis, disclosure, and schooling experiences of neurodivergent learners in Ghana, and how these shape expectations of support at university. The presenters examine staff readiness, professional training, and systemic gaps in provision, while reflecting on the tensions and opportunities of delivering UK‑aligned reasonable adjustments in a different regulatory and cultural context. Emphasising shared values and local voices, the session offers insights into building inclusive, context‑aware neurodiversity support within transnational education environments.
Universities and Their Third Mission: Community Engagement and Social Impact in Times of Crisis
Keynote: Tetiana Kuvaieva
The presentation will explore the evolving role of universities in fulfilling their third mission through active collaboration with communities, public institutions, and civil society. Particular attention will be given to how higher education institutions can identify community needs, support local development, and contribute to social resilience, especially in times of crisis and recovery. The talk will include practical examples of university–community cooperation, service-learning initiatives, and interdisciplinary projects aimed at strengthening sustainable regional development.
Reimagining Education: Inclusive Practices and Transformative Curriculum Design
Understanding Inclusive Teaching Practice Through The Lens Of A Reciprocal Mentoring Scheme
Keynotes: Dr Elizabeth Caldwell, Dr Louise Innes and Dr Sarah Robin
“Don’t underestimate the role of the personal touch.”
In 2021, the Learning Development team were awarded a LU widening participation grant to create a reciprocal mentoring project that attempted to understand the teaching and learning experiences of ethnic minority students at Lancaster.
The project would ultimately match Black and Ethnic Minority students with white senior teaching staff and create a space to share learning experiences, as part of a tailored programme of sessions and events.
In this keynote, we will present findings from this project in relation to inclusive teaching practice and curriculum design. These findings have illuminated the importance of considering the student as an individual, and the need to create communities and spaces that facilitate in-depth and personable learning.
The keynote from Tuesday 24th June.
Building A Caring Community Of Practice In A Sino/UK Collaborative Institute
Keynotes: Professor Christine Mortimer and Ms Jingru Guan
This Keynote will discuss experiences from the Lancaster University College@Beijing Jiaotong University- Weihai Campus, in developing an inclusive caring Community of Practice for staff and students, in a rural, isolated area of China.
Issues of ‘belonging’ and ‘community’ in Transnational Partnerships are not only focused on the student population, but also on the staff who are either based in China for the full 2 semesters or those who fly into the campus from Lancaster on either 12 week or 2 lots of 8-week assignments.
The challenges of defining ‘practice’ are also problematic, with the Lancaster staff being ‘betwixt and between’ two very different cultural ways of approaching education. How do we, our Chinese lecturing colleagues and the students navigate the pedagogical and cultural differences, to move towards creating a caring community of practice?
The keynote presentation from Wednesday 25th June with video narration is available to view now.
Empowering Education: Navigating the Landscape of Meaningful Student Engagement
Keynote: Professor Radka Newton
Radka’s personal experience of being an international student contributed to her professional calling to ensure that as educators we create challenging yet attainable education environments. As a continuous improvement and service excellence scholar, she has grown a significant expertise in combining executive coaching, organisation change practice and service design. Radka is a Personal Chair in Management Education and Innovation and a co-founder of the Service Design in Education network.
Keynote Title: Tom’s Christmas Trifle
When we are designing our courses or programmes, we often think mostly about our own knowledge, what we want to convey to the learners, what we feel is important. As conscientious educators we do consider the people we are designing for, especially if we have absorbed the dominant rhetoric of student-centredness. What, though, is this consideration based on and how do we keep these interests and insights front and centre when we are developing our educational practices? Join me in exploring the invisible life of students, their dreams and fears, hopes and frustrations. Let me open your hearts and your minds to better understanding our students that leads to better educational decisions.
To watch this keynote presentation, please follow the link below:
Tom's Christmas Trifle - Lancaster University Education Conference Keynote Presentation
Keynote: Yemi Gbajobi
With a career spanning almost 20 years in higher education and student engagement, Yemi Gbajobi (she/her) is currently the Chief Executive of the Arts Students' Union at the University of the Arts London. She has also held roles at the London School of Economics(LSE), City, University of London and London South Bank and student officer roles at Brunel University and the National Union of Students (NUS). She is also a Rugby Football Union (RFU) Council member and a Trustee of the Association of College Unions International (ACUI).
Keynote Title: Rethinking student engagement for the social media generation
The way students communicate continues to change, but universities typically use traditional methods of communicating with and engaging with students. This session will challenge attendees to rethink their understanding of and engagement with students' voices to ensure that their feedback is at the heart of the academic experience.
To watch this keynote presentation, please follow the link below:
Re-imagining Assessment and Feedback
Keynotes:
Reimagining assessment for joy, learning and achievement
Jan McArthur is Senior Lecturer in Education and Social Justice in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, UK. Her research focuses on the nature and purposes of higher education and how these relate to practices of teaching, learning and assessment. She has a particular interest in critical theory and in her published work explores the ideas of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Axel Honneth, applying these to higher education. She has previously published a book exploring how Adorno’s critical theory can inform our understanding of, and engagement with, knowledge in higher education for the purposes of greater social justice: Rethinking Knowledge in Higher Education (Bloomsbury). Her second book uses Honneth's conceptualisation of mutual recognition to rethink the nature of assessment in higher education, where one is committed to greater social justice: Assessment for Social Justice (Bloomsbury). She has published a wide range of journal articles on assessment, critical theory and social justice. Jan is a researcher in the ESRC and HEFCE funded ‘Centre for Global Higher Education’, and currently working on the international and longitudinal project: Graduate Experiences of Employability and Knowledge. This builds on the previous project: Understanding Knowledge, Curriculum and Student Agency. She is also Editor of Arts and Humanities in Higher Education.
Day 1 Keynote - Jan McArthur - Re-imagining Assessment for Joy, Learning and Achievement
Black and Minority Ethnic experiences in higher education: social justice, inclusion and white privilege
Kalwant Bhopal is Professor of Education and Social Justice and Director of the Centre on Research on Race and Education at the University of Birmingham, UK. Kalwant’s research focuses on the achievements and experiences of minority ethnic groups in education. She has conducted research on exploring discourses of identity and intersectionality examining the lives of Black minority ethnic groups as well as examining the marginal position of Gypsies and Travellers. Her research specifically explores how processes of racism, exclusion and marginalisation operate in predominantly White spaces with a focus on social justice and inclusion. From 2017-2019 she was Visiting Professor at Harvard University in the Graduate School of Education. Her recent book, White Privilege: the myth of a post-racial society was published by policy press. Her new book (with Martin Myers) Elites and the making of privilege has just been published by Routledge.
Day 2 Plenary - Students' Honest Views & Students' Secret Practices AI in Assessment
