The Annual Education and Student Experience Conference brings colleagues together to celebrate, share and showcase the innovative work taking place across our University to enhance learning, teaching and the student experience.
This year, a total of £10,000 is available, with applications welcomed for projects of up to £2,000 each.
Projects should align to this year’s conference themes.
Diversifying the curriculum
Skills, graduate attributes, and real-world application of competencies
Students as co-creators and collaborators
The awards are funded through the Education and Student Experience Fund and the Race Equality Charter Fund.
We encourage applications from across the University community and welcome proposals which would make a difference to our education and student experience.
Applicants should attend this year’s conference, which is taking place between 8-10 September. You can book your place using this online form.
The conference programme includes presentations from recipients of last year’s awards.
Are you thinking about coming to the Education and Student Experience conference in September? Maybe you’ve never attended before, or you are new to the university. Perhaps you’re not sure whether it would be a good use of your time. With just under a month to go, we wanted to release a blogpost outlining previous conference feedback.
Of course, we would say it’s the best three days in the diary (we do organise it!), but what do attendees from last year say?
Every year we run a feedback survey with people who have been to the conference. And last year 97% of people who responded rated the conference as 4 or 5 out of 5. And 90% said that it met their expectations.
The aspects of the conference that attendees valued the most were that it provided an opportunity to discuss up-to-date topics in learning and teaching, and community building. The mix of internal and external speakers means you have the chance to find out what’s going on in other AU departments, as well as universities in the UK and beyond. And you can meet staff in other departments who may share the same teaching or research interests as you. There’s plenty of time during breaks to meet new people as well as catch-up with colleagues you haven’t seen for a while.
Not only is the conference a great event, but attendees say that it has a direct impact on their teaching practice. Through both the conference papers and workshops, and the conversations, staff say that they use new approaches learnt from the conference in their teaching. After last year’s conference, several staff members told us they were going to explore using AI in their teaching. If you are thinking of applying for AdvanceHE fellowship, the conference is also a great way of taking part in CPD and reflecting on your teaching practice.
One of the messages that attendees suggested that we share more widely is that you’re welcome to dip in and out of the conference. We know that you may not be able to spend all three days attending, but you can come along for a couple of talks that really interest you. And of course, you can stay for as long as you like if you find that you want to carry on the conversation, or another session catches your eye.
So, it’s not just the organising team who rate the conference highly – staff from across the university agree that it’s a good way of meeting colleagues, discussing teaching topics, and learning something that they can use in their teaching. Come along and join them and find out for yourself. We’d love to see you there.
We previously announced our keynote speaker at this year’s Annual Education and Student Experience Conference: Dr Hardeep Kaur Basra.
We’re now delighted to announce our second external speakers: Professor Ruth Healey and Millie Leach.
They’ll be joining us on Day 1 of the conference with the session: From tokenistic to authentic: meaningful co-creation with students.
Please see below for their biographies:
Ruth Healey is a Professor of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, at the University of Chester. She is a National Teaching Fellow (NTF) (2017); a Fellow of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) (2019), a Senior Fellow of the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) (2024), and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA) (2026). She is one of the inaugural editors of the International Journal for Students as Partners(2016-).
Millie Leach is an undergraduate BSc Cybersecurity student at the University of Chester, working alongside her degree as a Student Learning Consultant for the university’s Centre for Academic Innovation and Development. She is a recipient of Staff and Educational Development Association’s (SEDA) ‘Student Partnership Impact Award’ (2025) and recently become an editor of the International Journal for Students as Partners(2025-).
Our keynote will be delivered by Dr Hardeep Kaur Basra who is Head of Educational Development at De Montfort University.
Dr Kaur Basra has led the Decolonising DMU project. This keynote and workshop will build on our own Race Equality Charter work. This session will be complemented by colleagues engaged in decolonising the curriculum at Aberystwyth.
We’re welcoming Professor Ruth Healey from Chester University who is an expert on students as co-creators.
UndebAber will be delivering a session on skills alongside WONKHE’s Jim Dickinson.
Colleagues from Blackboard will be joining us to highlight new accessibility initiatives with Blackboard Ally and roadmaps of new features. We’ll be presenting with the Department of Life Sciences on using achievements to record skills.
Recipients of the inaugural Education and Student Experience Awards will provide updates on their 4 projects and we’ll be launching the 2nd year of this initiative at the conference.
There are workshops and presentations across the 3 days – thank you to our colleagues and students who are contributing.
We hope to see you there and we’re looking forward to what promises to be an amazing event.
We are delighted to announce our keynote for our forthcoming Education and Student Experience Conference (8-10 September).
Dr Hardeep Kaur Basra will be joining us in person for a keynote presentation and a workshop.
We will get so much valuable input from Dr Basra that will really help us to enhance our education and student experience offering as well as build on the incredible work of the Race Equality Charter.
See below for Dr Basra’s biography.
Dr Hardeep Kaur Basra (PFHEA, NTF, CATE) is an Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning and Inclusive Education Lead at De Montfort University. With over two decades of experience in higher education, she is a nationally recognised leader in inclusive, anti-racist and decolonising pedagogies. Her work spans institutional strategy, curriculum transformation and academic development, with a sustained focus on improving student outcomes, belonging and equity.
Hardeep has led major institution-wide initiatives, including advancing inclusive curricula, addressing awarding gaps and shaping Access and Participation strategies. She has played a key role in sector-leading work such as Decolonising DMU, contributing to Race Equality Charter success, and designs impactful staff development programmes including the PG Cert in Empowering Education.
As a Principal Fellow of Advance HE, National Teaching Fellow and CATE award holder, she contributes to national conversations on equity, excellence and transformational change in higher education.
Last month we had the pleasure of welcoming our Education and Student Experience Award recipients to an event.
The Education and Student Experience Award fund was launched last year at our Education and Student Experience Conference.
The event aimed to give colleagues undertaking these projects and their supporters, as well as the panel, an update on progress – to share successes, as well as identify any challenges that colleagues might have come across.
Each of the four projects gave a presentation.
Please read below for an overview of each project and the PDF files associated with each presentation.
Project 1: The Aber Medieval Physic Garden
Led by Elizabeth New (History & Welsh History), alongside Sian Nicholas, Eleri Phillips, and a student steering committee. The aim of this project is to create an outdoor amenity for staff and students that support education and recreation on campus. The project seeks to enhance students’ learning through collaborative mentored historical research, gardening, and public engagement.
Project 2: Developing a Sustainable Student Gear Hub
This project is led by Emma Sheppard (DGES), alongside Toni Beardmore, Eleri Phillips, Morgan Jones, Emma Butler-Wray, Hywel Griffiths, and Tom Holt.
The aim of the project is to promote accessibility, inclusivity, and sustainability in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences by developing a ‘library of things’ for student borrowing and use.
The library will make use of second-hand useable resources and students will be able to participate in repair cafes, making the library sustainable.
Toni Beardmore and Eleri Phillips presented at the event. Please see their slideshow below:
Project 4: Pulling together – supporting teamwork assessment more effectively
Department of Life Science’s Scott Tompsett is collaborating with Cal Walters-Davies and Caroline White from Student Journey to identify common issues for students in relation to group work.
They are investigating how to make groupwork more accessible to neurodivergent students.
They aim to develop a suite of resources for students and teaching staff to better facilitate group work and will test these in several modules.
Scott presented at the event and the slides from the presentation are below.
We’re sure that you will agree that these are such worthwhile projects.
You can hear more about these projects at the 14th Education and Student Experience Conference between 08 and 10 September.
Bookings for the conference, as well as the call for proposals is now open. You can find further information on our blog.
We are delighted to announce that we will be running the Education and Student Experience Awards again next year. The awards will be tied to the conference theme and will be open to conference attendees.
We’re pleased to announce the dates for Aberystwyth University’s 14th annual Education and Student Experience Conference.
We will be hosting the conference between Tuesday 8 – Thursday 10 September 2026.
We will start work on planning and establishing themes and guest speakers for the conference.
Conference themes, calls for proposals, and external speakers will be announced in the new year. Keep an eye on our webpages and our blog for further information.
If there is a particular topic that you would like the conference to address, do get in touch via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
