PAC University’s Post

My opening keynote at the 2nd International Conference on Educational Research and Innovation. Complex Dynamic Systems and Education: A (New) Research Paradigm.

I’m looking forward to this. It is something new I am working on with Ben Williamson and Kean Birch, where we look at different instances of how academic content is assetised and with what consequences. We often notice public polemic about ‘symptoms’ rathen than ‘causes’ when academic content is used for economic gain by different organisations and actors. In this talk, I will make a case that we should focus on the causes - assetisation with legal, economic and technical dimensions.

Honored to have chaired a panel at the Times Higher Education European Universities Summit hosted by Constructor University where we delved into the reputational performance of German universities. Grateful for the insights and practical advice shared by Helmut Kern, Ellie Cook and Mark Sudbury on how universities can enhance their global reputation. Here are a few key takeaways from our discussion: - Understanding your audience and leveraging data to identify strengths are crucial components in shaping universities reputation strategy - Repuation strategy should be intergrated with the wider institutional strategy & led by the universities leadership team - Collaboration with the academic community fosters innovation and strengthens institutional reputation. - Exploring various initiatives allows universities to adapt to evolving global landscapes. - Continuous evaluation and feedback mechanisms are integral in refining strategies and measuring impact.

It has been a conference-packed fortnight! What a great 10th Researcher Education and Development Scholarship Conference today. Mind you, there is nothing like finding yourself doing a surprise paper on 36 hours to keep you on your toes (thanks to Ruth Currie for being chill about my repurposing our work on "Holding Space for Reflective Supervisory Praxis" from CoPhS last week!). My 3 top highlights from today were: ⭐ The compelling Keynote from Faith Uwadiae about how research leadership starts from self-leadership: there is no need for titles, we all lead. I loved her circle reflective questions (1) Who am I? (2) How do others experience me? (3) Where am I leading now? (4) What type of leader do I want to be in those spaces? ⭐ The inspiring paper from Anna Brady about how to take a whole-organisation approach to re-building trust and bring adaptive leadership into entrenched and problematic organisational cultures. ⭐ Finally Selvi Jeyaseelan and Julie Reeves left me with not one (RE-AIM: Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, implementation, maintenance) but two (KAP: Knowledge Attitudes Practices) important models to build with when planning the 2025 suite of University of Glasgow Talent Lab research leadership programmes (https://lnkd.in/eDNu7Cx7) 

In our penultimate ✨day of insights, the spotlight is on the Netherlands.🇳🇱 It has been a turbulent year for higher education policy in the Netherlands, but interest in studying at Dutch institutions is still high. At Bachelors level, India and the USA are the largest and most robust audiences. 🇮🇳🇺🇸 And, while interest from India and the USA is significant at Masters level, audiences are less likely to search for the Netherlands compared to last year. Join us tomorrow for the 12th day of insights and read more insights like these here: https://hubs.ly/Q02_HCh10

Check out this new article by two Oxford academics, sharing their experiences of travelling to academic conferences without flying - and their reasons why! https://lnkd.in/ehA3iG_d (Note: I helped a bit with some of the facts and figures).

📢 UoM alumni in my network! Help us congratulate our incoming students on their A-Level results day by sharing a short congratulatory video and some words of advice about joining our university community. Overview: On Thursday, 15 August we’ll be confirming the places of thousands of students ahead of September’s start of the academic year! To celebrate, we are hosting a YouTube Live event for new students to find out all about the University and chat to each other in the comments. As part of this, we’re looking for personal messages from our alumni community, offering their congratulatory messages and a piece of advice. How to film: Please film landscape on your mobile or laptop. This can be in a Selfie style; propping up your phone against something; or asking somebody to hold it for you. Please consider lighting so we can see your face, and sound so there’s no background noise. Length of film: We’re only looking for 15-25 seconds as we want to showcase as many alumni as possible and have minimal time! So please keep it brief. Introduction: Please do introduce yourself at the start but remember the main focus is the congrats and advice! Deadline: Please send to studentmarketing@manchester.ac.uk by Thursday, 8 August.

You can watch the thoughts of Hoda El Mahgoub, a representative of Freie Universität Berlin, one of Germany's top universities, about our fairs in our video. If you also want to be part of a2 International Education Fairs, the best international education fairs, you can contact us at sales@a2fairs.com. #studentrecruitment #studyabroadfair #studyabroad #studyabroadconsultancy

Need help making a poster but don’t know where to start? In today's workshop, Office of Undergraduate Research staff will give helpful suggestions for creating an effective poster presentation of your research or creative project. Content considerations, design principles, and logistics for your poster will be presented. Bring your laptop to begin working on your poster presentation for U-GLIDE (The Undergraduate – Graduate Learning, Inquiry and Distinctive Experimentation Symposium), which will be held at UNF at the conclusion of the fall semester!

"Pays Cible" 🎯 - a concept to #foster collaboration between two higher education and research regions. This year, Switzerland had the pleasure to be invited as "pays cible" by Académie de recherche et d'enseignement supérieur - ARES. A Swiss delegation of IRO respresentatives of Swiss higher education institutions met their colleagues from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation in April in Brussels. https://lnkd.in/gMURCCae The main goal was to foster the #understanding of the respective higher education and research landscapes 🔎, to learn from each other's #expertise 🗨 and to develop academic #collaboration between the two regions. One of the fruits 🍒 of this exchange is a factsheet which we would like to share! ❔ ❓ ❔ A question to our colleagues from the Swiss higher education sector: What would be your "pays cible" you would like to get to know better?