Compassion, collegiality and communities in higher education: challenging the discourse
SRHE International Conference 2025
Friday 28 November (online) and Tuesday 2 – Thursday 4 December (in-person at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham, UK).
Theme
Higher education is an aspiration for millions of people, a driver for social mobility, a home for the development of new knowledge through research and innovation, and a refuge for freedom of thought and opinion. Despite this, media and political discourse in many countries often depicts higher education as elitist and perpetuating social inequalities, whilst also threatening freedom of speech and cultivating anxiety among staff and students, and implying that HE offers poor value for money to students, families, and taxpayers. How are these views shaped by external parties such as politicians, the media and parents, and by the increasingly profound differences in values, experiences and voting patterns between people who have studied in higher education and others who have not? To what extent are stakeholders within higher education – academics, students, professional service staff and leaders – complicit in accepting and repeating these discourses of higher education even if it may not reflect their beliefs and engagement with higher education in practice?
Those who work in higher education still believe in the collective efforts of teaching to transform students, research to push the boundaries of disciplines and the power of higher education to improve local communities, create global connections and improve society. How can people studying and working in higher education take back control of the discourse, celebrating the communities at the heart of higher education, the collegiality necessary to deliver high quality teaching and research and the compassion to support staff and students in these endeavours? Can kindness and caring (care-giving, care-receiving and caring for oneself) be at the heart of the system? Are there ways in which higher education institutions could enhance their engagement with people who have not studied or worked in them, and communities with low proportions of graduates?
The SRHE annual international conference aims to advance the understanding of higher education, support and disseminate research and practice, and provide a platform for the perspectives and knowledge offered by systematic research and scholarship. With an international membership which spans a broad range of the humanities and social sciences, the SRHE community includes researchers, students, policymakers, educational developers, professional services staff, and others with an interest in higher education. The SRHE conference acts as a space for broad-ranging knowledge exchange, exploration of productive pathways for collaboration, and dissemination of ideas in a variety of formats, across a range of research domains. In line with this, conference submissions that do not directly address the conference theme are also eligible for inclusion, and will be considered in full by reviewers and moderators.
Papers will be organised under 10 broad research domains. The research domains are:
- Academic practice, Work, Careers, and Cultures (AP)
- Digital University and New Learning Technologies (DU)
- Employability, Enterprise, and Graduate Careers (EE)
- Higher Education Policy (HEP)
- International Contexts and Perspectives (ICP)
- Learning, Teaching, and Assessment (LTA)
- Management, Leadership, Governance, and Quality (MLGQ)
- Postgraduate Scholarship and Practice (PGSP)
- Student Access and Experience (SAE)
- Technical, Professional and Vocational Higher Education (TPV)
Keynote Speakers
Friday 28 November (online)
Thinking with care: untangling the ambivalences and complexities of contemporary care discourses in higher education
+ Dr Karen Gravett
Dr Karen Gravett is Associate Professor of Higher Education, and Associate Head (Research) at the University of Surrey, UK, where her research focuses on the theory-practice of higher education. She is a member of the Society for Research in Higher Education Governing Council, a member of the editorial board for Teaching in Higher Education, and Learning, Media and Technology, and Associate Editor for Sociology. She is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is also an Honorary Associate Professor for the Centre for Assessment and Digital Learning at Deakin University. Karen’s latest books are: Gravett, K. (2025) Critical Practice in Higher Education, and Gravett, K. (2023) Relational Pedagogies: Connections and Mattering in Higher Education.
Tuesday 2 December (in-person)
The Race Against Time for
Compassionate Teams Development in HE
+ Professor Theo Gilbert
Based within the Centre for Education and Student Success, Theo Gilbert, is a Professor or Compassion-focused Pedagogy, at University of Hertfordshire (UH). He is recipient of the Times Higher Education’s/Advance HE’s award for: Most Innovative Teacher, 2018 and 2020’s keynote speaker for the sector’s National Teaching Fellows. Alongside his publications, he has a strong presence on this work, on YouTube. With a background in anthropology and Head of Complaints Investigation at St Thomas Hospital, London, his research on compassion has since translated rich, current scholarship on the cognitive nature of compassion into the applied context of teamwork management. This work is used in the public sector, for example, by the UK Police to enhance team cohesion and effectiveness across the country. The Compassion in HE website welcomes colleagues to use and work with others from its free practical resources: https://compassioninhe.wordpress.com/ The website is supporting staff in 90 universities, as well as some FE colleges and schools.
Conference Information
Delegates are welcome to attend online, in person, or both – please note that attending both formats will require two bookings.
SRHE members can attend the online day free-of-charge and will be able to access a discounted rate for the in-person element. For more about SRHE membership and its benefits, click here.
To book your free place as an SRHE member, please ensure you are logged into your SRHE member account at the time of registration.
Please note that conference registration does not include accommodation. This must be booked separately by delegates. Information about accommodation associated with the conference centre will be available soon.
| Key Dates | |
| Early Bird Booking | Standard Booking |
| By 23rd September 2025 | 24th September 2025 onwards |
Conference practices which prioritise inclusivity and accessibility are important to us at SRHE. As always, our submission form will include an open question by which delegates are welcome to outline any measures we could take to support your full participation in the conference.
Existing measures we take to enhance the inclusivity of our conference include:
- Our submission platform is Oxford Abstracts. Should you have any issues using the system, please contact the team for assistance: srhe@srhe.ac.uk.
- We will schedule guidance sessions for both presenters and session chairs later in the year, ahead of the conference.
- Suggested best practice on presenting online can be found on our SRHE blog: please click here to view.
- Suggested best practice on chairing conference sessions can be found on our SRHE blog: please click here to view.
- Written guidance notes will be available to all peer reviewers, moderators, and session chairs.
- Those joining us online will receive an e-mail reminder in advance of the event with all details required to participate.
We also take measures to ensure other aspects of the conference promote accessibility and inclusivity, including the scheduling, the choice and management of the physical space for the in-person element, and our communications – and we are always open to hearing directly from conference delegates about other enhancements and adjustments to be mindful of.
If you have any queries, please use our live chat (available at the bottom right-hand corner of any page on our website), or alternatively e-mail:
- Dr Rihana Suliman, SRHE Manager: Conferences and Events: rihana.suliman@srhe.ac.uk
- If your query relates to conference exhibition, sponsorship or other forms of engagement, please include Mariam Ismail, SRHE Engagement and Development Manager, in your correspondence: mariam.ismail@srhe.ac.uk