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(Re)Designing Higher Education

2025-26 Member Benefit Shaping the Future with Insight and Innovation. A collaborative programme for educational leaders ready to transform their institutions.

Available to Advance HE Members only

Higher education is at a crossroads—student needs are evolving rapidly, technology is disrupting traditional models, and financial pressures demand innovative approaches. Our (Re)Designing Higher Education programme connects you with global educational leaders through three focused sessions on students, workforce, and institutions. You'll gain access to cutting-edge case studies, evidence-based strategies, and opportunities to collaborate with peers to help your institution not just survive but thrive in this transformed landscape.

Bookings for the sessions are now open.

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Bookings for the three sessions are now open. These sessions are for Advance HE members, don't miss out!

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Ready to Lead Educational Transformation?

Join institutional leaders from around the world in this exclusive member benefit programme.

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Higher Education at a Crossroads

The landscape is changing faster than ever.

Student Evolution

Student needs and expectations are rapidly evolving. Digital natives demand personalized, flexible learning experiences that traditional models struggle to deliver.

Technology Disruption

AI and emerging technologies are challenging established assessment models while creating new opportunities for educational innovation.

Financial Pressure

Institutions must diversify income streams and improve efficiency while maintaining quality and regulatory compliance.

Global Competition

International recruitment, reputation management, and the need for global perspectives have never been more critical.

Workforce Transformation

Changing job roles require new approaches to workforce development and institutional capacity.

Success Metrics

The imperative to improve student success rates directly impacts both financial sustainability and institutional reputation.
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Key Programme Elements

Three Sessions, Three Transformations

Join global education leaders in reimagining the future.

Each session combines global case studies, expert insights, and collaborative planning opportunities with institutions facing similar challenges worldwide.

Workforce

Date: 18 March 2026 

Time: 14:30-16:00 GMT

Making deliberate but good organisational choices in conditions of constraint

Higher Education is facing unavoidable workforce trade-offs amid sustained financial and operational constraints. This session creates space for open discussion of the difficult design choices shaping roles, structures and institutional capacity across academic and professional services. Moving beyond incremental efficiency, it focuses on how deliberate workforce design can strengthen delivery, resilience and the ability to deliver the core mission. Participants will leave with clearer insight into how workforce configuration can better support institutional priorities amid ongoing reform.

Chair: Charles Knight

Speakers: Professor Sam Grogan, Lisa Mann and Emma Bates

Bookings now open

Institutions

Date: 16 June 2026

Time: 14:30-16:00 BST

Bookings now open

Student Needs: (Re)thinking support, success and belonging in higher education

Took place on 21 January 2026.

Higher education is experiencing significant shifts in who students are, what they need, and how they experience learning and institutional life. This session invites institutional leaders and practitioners to step back and critically reflect on how well current approaches are aligned with today’s realities.

The session will include short provocations from senior sector leaders, offering perspectives on:

  • The changing nature of student need and expectation
  • Persistent challenges around access, wellbeing, belonging and progression
  • Where sector responses may need to evolve over the next 3–5 years

The format is highly interactive, combining expert insight, peer discussion and applied reflection to support strategic thinking and institutional learning.

Speakers: 

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Is This Programme for You?

  • Designed for educational leaders driving institutional transformation
  • Institutional leadership teams.
  • Heads of Learning and Teaching, Workforce Development, and Digital Transformation.
  • Senior staff responsible for educational strategy, curriculum design, and student success.
  • Teams leading innovation or transformation projects in higher education.
People working together.
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Speakers

Jim Dickinson

Associate Editor
,
Wonkhe
Jim Dickinson
Jim Dickinson is an Associate Editor at Wonkhe where he takes a particular interest in students, governance and higher education regulation and leads on work with students’ unions.

Dr Sammy Li

Assistant Director
,
University of Birmingham
Dr Sammy Li
Dr Sammy Li is Assistant Director at the University of Birmingham and an Executive Member of AMOSSHE. He oversees postgraduate student affairs and has a sector-wide profile on student EDI, widening participation, and inclusive education initiatives. Recently, he contributed to Advance HE’s guidance on freedom of speech.

Dr Jummy Okoya

Associate Professor and Dean of the Office for Institutional Equity
,
University of East London
Dr Jummy Okoya
Jummy leads the University’s strategy for equity, inclusion and student success as a core driver of institutional sustainability and social justice. A scholar-practitioner with over 25 years’ experience across higher education, her work focuses on intersectional leadership, racial equity, belonging and the emotional labour of advancing inclusion.

Professor Sam Grogan

Pro Vice-Chancellor for Student Experience
,
University of Salford
Sam Grogan profile photo
As Pro Vice-Chancellor for Student Experience at the University of Salford, Sam holds oversight for quality and standards of the academic portfolio, executive responsibility for the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Centre within the university and executive responsibility for developing the learning philosophy underpinning the student journey.

Lisa Mann

Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer
,
Arts University Bournemouth
Lisa Mann assumed in January 2025 following the retirement of Professor Paul Gough. Her appointment reflects a distinguished career in higher education, marked by innovative leadership and a commitment to advancing creative disciplines.

Charles Knight

Director of Educational Excellence and Student Success
,
Advance HE
Charles Knight
Charles is an academic leader with a proven track record of delivery in the areas of learning teaching and enterprise. Before joining Advance HE, he was Associate Dean (Student Experience) at Salford Business School where he worked with colleagues to introduce a series of innovative practices including short technical qualifications, block teaching and an increased emphasis on the use of simulations and experimental learning.
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