In December 2024, the Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE) ran its annual international conference bringing together higher education (HE) researchers and scholars from all around the world. For a while, I have known SRHE to be a longstanding learned society concerned with all matters HE, and one that has been consistently promoting methodological rigour of HE scholarship and research, and the advancement of knowledge on the sector from a worldwide perspective. The 2024 iteration of their annual conference however, was my first experience of coming together with delegates from all over the world to discuss topical, and at times contentious topics currently at the HE thematology forefront.
This year, the theme of the conference considered whether HE is (or can be) a place for activism and resistance; a sort of open theme, that allowed delegates to define and shape what these terms mean, and negotiate how they might fit in their educational practice and experience. The plenary programme included several particularly interesting talks, each addressing a definitional layer of what activism and resistance in the HE landscape means. My personal highlights were the opening plenary by Prof Syed Farid Alatas (National University of Singapore) on the different, nuanced interpretations of what anti-colonial thought is, and its ongoing struggle with imperialism, and the final day plenary panel titled ‘Contemporary spheres of academic freedom and freedom of speech: Sex, Racism, and Neocolonialism’. This last plenary panel was an extremely interesting experience, hosting speakers such as Dr Laila Kadiwal (UCL), who is Associate Professor in Education and Development, and whose work is centred on decolonialising critical pedagogies, Prof Alice Sullivan (UCL) whose work looks at social and educational inequalities cross the lifespan particularly in British cohorts, and Assoc. Prof Michelle Shipworth (UCL) who spoke about her experience on having a module removed by the University following student complaints after a teaching exercise examining modern day slavery.
My paper presentation, co-authored with Dr Kate Ippolito, showcased the power staff-student co-creation of curricula has had in enabling our students to act as educational advocates, and them gaining a sense of ownership and agency in shaping their HE learning experiences. Using examples from previous successful collaborations between us and some of our UG iExplore STEMM module ‘The Science of Learning’ (SoL) alumni, we tracked how the experience of the module itself grabbed our students’ attention in such a way that they co-designed, storyboarded and produced learning resources for the use and benefit of future SoL iterations. A particularly proud moment was discussing one such example where our collaborative endeavour spread beyond our local Imperial remit, and was part of a funded international collaboration with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore which resulted in a publication of a practice paper on the co-creation process.
I was also lucky to be joined by both my current and former PhD students, Ms Vilma Rupeikaite and Dr Vily Papageorgiou, and to create new networks and collaborations with likeminded academics from across the sector. I would absolutely encourage colleagues at Imperial involved in educational scholarship, be that theoretical, research, or an evaluation of practice, to consider submitting an abstract and attending the next iteration of SRHE in 2025. It was truly a refreshing and intellectually stimulating experience, and one which certainly makes me re-ignite my appreciation of how worthwhile HE discourse and scholarship is.