We'll discuss what works well or needs improving and find ways to connect institutions to better support our peers and students and deepen advocacy for them.

Jisc's managing director for further education and skills, nations, advice and training, Robin Ghurbhurun welcomes delegates to day two of Digifest.

This is followed by the keynote session.

As the education sector faces challenges that threaten the sustainability of many institutions, we’ll hear from senior leaders in HE and FE about how they are navigating these complexities while still driving positive change. With increasing financial pressures, changing student expectations and a rapidly evolving technological environment, we will explore how digital technologies and data-driven decision-making can support efforts to secure long-term sustainability in education. Additionally, we will reflect on how the current financially challenging environment, despite its difficulties, presents an opportunity for creativity, innovation and better collaboration both within and outside the sector.

11:00 - 11:30

Our Jisc team will be on hand to demystify the procurement process, answer your questions, and provide valuable insights to ensure you get the most out of your Jisc membership. In addition, we can share supplier management best practice to enhance your supplier relationships. 

Don't miss this opportunity to connect with fellow members and take the first step towards hassle-free procurement and supplier management. See you there!

Find out about the amazing array of communities across FE and beyond. Learn how these communities are supporting practitioners and discuss ways we can pull these threads together to find you the very best support.

Join us to discover how Harlow College is leveraging Bodyswaps’ immersive technology to transform education and prepare both staff and students for the future. 

By integrating virtual reality and AI-driven role-playing simulations into their curriculum, Harlow College is redefining how learners develop essential soft skills such as empathy, communication and decision-making. This session will explore how Bodyswaps creates realistic, high-impact learning experiences that foster confidence, critical thinking, and career readiness whilst providing safe spaces for skill development, equipping the next generation with the tools they need to succeed in an evolving job market.

Learn how this innovative approach enhances student engagement, but has also provided a different approach to continuing professional development for staff, allowing the opportunity to be brave, develop and refine soft skills and transform the way in which staff experience learning.

Join Kalam Neale, head of education at British Esports Federation to uncover the rapid growth of esports in education. 

This session will support your understanding and implementation of esports curriculum through British Esports' endorsed programmes and why you should join this digital revolution in education. 

Kalam will explain the growing global phenomenon of the esports industry, how this coincides with esports in education and how can you join the hundreds of schools and colleges that are already part of this revolution through qualifications with Leadership Skills Foundation, Pearson and through their participation in the British Esports Student Champs. 

How can esports transform your digital strategy and innovate your pedagogical approach and curriculum design to support the future workforce, to address skills gaps and engage a tech-agile, digital generation of young people that are in our classrooms? 

If you haven't developed an esports curriculum offer yet, why not? 

A dive into sector data and related news to gauge the influence of our tertiary sector on the global stage, including how people from all four corners, coming to the UK as part of their education, have gone on to shape the world – and how to spread that good news more widely.

There have been many gloomy sector-related headlines over the last twelve months, relating to international students, fees and financial sustainability. One might be forgiven for thinking the UK’s HE and FE sectors are in terminal decline, compared to global benchmarks. Without wishing to make light of genuine and serious challenges being faced, does the data give cause for greater optimism?

By referencing sources including global open data, HESA and AoC data, and bespoke analysis, do we see a different picture from that painted by the headlines? Whether it be: global statespersons; Nobel prize winners, patent generators and other international research collaborators; or leaders in the arts and creative industries; might we see the 'soft power' or influence of our tertiary sector on the world stage actually growing? And if so, how do we get that positive message across more clearly? 

Please come along and find out from our expert panel.

This session explores the basics of managing cloud data more intentionally, aiming to reduce costs and reduce your institution's environmental impact. 

We'll discuss how to spot redundant files, develop simple habits to control data growth, and learn about the benefits of occasional "spring cleans". The focus is on practical, easily achievable steps that anyone can put into practice. 

By the end, you’ll have fresh ideas on how to keep your digital spaces more organised, cost-effective, and aligned with sustainability goals.

In this session, you will hear from universities who are redesigning their curriculum with digital in mind and developing their strategies for blended learning. 

This will be a practical workshop where you will be able to explore the beyond blended materials and how these can support your own practice.

By listening to disabled people's experiences, we can create inclusive educational environments that enable more people to realise their potential. At a time of tremendous growth in assistive technologies – especially AI tools – we invite you to pause and explore the value in using human centred approaches to evaluating and implementing solutions that meet the needs of our diverse student population and workforce.

The speakers will explore the importance of context, the advantages and limitations of technology, and the tremendous improvement opportunities for education providers in learning from staff and students who are deaf, disabled, or neurodivergent. 

Questions and contributions from attendees are welcomed in this friendly chat. Suitable for people with all levels of experience in accessibility, assistive technology and inclusive practice, including those new to the topic.

By working together we can achieve more. We learn from each other, collectively solve challenges and innovate. It's not always easy, and it's important to understand the practices that can support collaboration, particularly when working across institutions and disciplines. Now in its fifth year, the Jisc community champions programme celebrates people working tirelessly behind the scenes to make collaboration happen.

In this session we hear from our champions alumni about how they encourage collaboration, engage communities and make shared learning happen.

Join us in the Jisc community area for a session designed for delegates from across the Welsh tertiary education sector. 

This is an opportunity to connect, reflect, and collaborate. Take a moment to share insights from Digifest, exchange ideas with peers, and explore how we can shape the future of digital transformation in Wales. 

This informal gathering is a chance to strengthen networks, spark new collaborations, and meet Jisc colleagues supporting your digital journey. 

Join Wonkhe editor Debbie McVitty, Adobe Education's Mark Andrews and special guests for a live chat on the latest thinking on how fostering digital literacies can unlock curriculum and pedagogic challenges, inspire educators and engage students. 

Bring your insights, your examples of practice, your questions, and your caffeinated beverages.

• Discuss and build understanding around digital skills and their importance.
• Demonstrate how the discovery tool aids this understanding.
• Explore how fostering a digital mindset can have far reaching benefits for individuals and their future.
• Understand the wide range of benefits to the organisation and beyond.

If educational institutions act solely as gatekeepers of information we will fail. What will differentiate us from a simple Google search or YouTube video on a given topic? It is the learning experiences that we can provide, not just the information we share, that will ensure that educational institutions are valuable contributors to our society for generations to come. 

The incorporation of experiential learning will be of greater importance in education as each generation is raised with increased access to technology and information. 

Our ability to separate educational institutions from the general internet will continue to be what will position educational institutions as a valuable step for the majority of future generations.

In this session, the University of Leeds and University of Northampton will discuss how they used Jisc's international students’ digital experience research, building digital capability and digital experience insights student survey data to inform and shape the support they have put in place to support international students and enable a more inclusive digital experience.

In today’s fast-paced digital world, IT teams face growing challenges—rising energy costs, increasing device demand, and the push for sustainable solutions. Nottingham College’s, Yasir Rafi, will inspire you with his talk on ‘Smarter IT, Greener IT’ which explores how colleges can embrace intelligent automation and eco-friendly technology to create a more efficient, sustainable IT infrastructure. 

Yasir will discuss how smart locker solutions can streamline device management, reducing administrative burdens while improving accessibility for students and staff. 

This unmissable talk will also cover how energy-efficient charging solutions, like LapSafe®’s smart charging, help lower carbon footprints by optimising power use and eliminating unnecessary energy waste. By adopting data-driven automation, smart asset management, and sustainable charging solutions, colleges can cut costs, reduce downtime, and contribute to their net zero goals. 

This talk will highlight how small changes to IT operations can have a big impact on efficiency, sustainability, and the student experience. 

Explore how colleges can embrace intelligent automation and eco-friendly technology to create a more efficient, sustainable IT infrastructure.   

Npuls is the eight-year national programme by and for all public vocational education training schools, universities of applied sciences, and research universities in the Netherlands. 

The programme is a joint initiative of national partners, including SURF and the Ministry of Education aiming to transform Dutch education to be fit for the future. Npuls works on an ecosystem that provides learners personalised learning paths and the best possible education based on state of the art digital technology. 

The design of the ecosystem is based on public values such as justice, humanity and autonomy. Npuls works to develop joint digital services for education, a national infrastructure for knowledge exchange, and intensively works with teams from all educational institutions to realise the transformation of education.

This session offers a comparative narrative on the AI journey of Hills Road Sixth Form College (FE) and the University of Birmingham (HE), focusing on authenticity, integration, and future-readiness. Highlighting shared challenges and divergent approaches to AI literacy, the session explores practical strategies and cultural shifts needed to make AI work effectively in education. 

Attendees will see demonstrations of key initiatives, including the University of Birmingham’s generative AI educator course, designed to upskill staff, and Hills Road’s custom AI tools, such as the virtual EPQ mentor, which supports students with project development. Through these examples, the session underscores how collaboration, realism, and innovation can foster confident AI adoption.

Milton Keynes College Group has an embedded culture of 'collaborating beyond boundaries', working with a variety of stakeholders including employers, other educational institutions and students to shape its digital transformation. 

Hear how collaborative working and sharing expertise in AI, emerging technologies and digital skills development helps foster innovation and allows an agile and research-led approach to digital transformation. This has resulted in the development of a number of student and staff digital programmes as well as supporting digital development in AI, automation and digital pedagogies.

All Jisc member organisations have a dedicated relationship manager to help you access Jisc's full range of products, services and support. 

If you have any queries or would like support from your relationship manager, then come and meet us at this drop-in session.

This session will support your understanding and implementation of esports curriculum through British Esports' endorsed programmes and why you should join this digital revolution in education. 

Kalam and Andy will explain the growing global phenomenon of the esports industry, how this coincides with esports in education and how you can join the hundreds of schools and colleges that are already part of this revolution through qualifications with Leadership Skills Foundation, Pearson and through their participation in the British Esports Student Champs. 

How can esports transform your digital strategy and innovate your pedagogical approach and curriculum design to support the future workforce, to address skills gaps and engage a tech-agile, digital generation of young people that are in our classrooms? 

If you haven't developed an esports curriculum offer yet, why not? 

A key challenge for IT professionals in education is to deliver scalable, seamless access to the software applications needed for students' critical coursework across all types of devices, for all applications, on and off campus. 

With almost half of students using non-Windows devices (eg. Mac and Chromebooks), and students preferring a more hybrid learning environment, it is increasingly difficult for IT teams to balance IT complexities, cyber security, limited budgets and resources, all while maintaining student equity and providing a digital experience that meets students’ expectations. 

In this session, we will draw upon the current landscape and use insight and recommendations from the latest student digital experience survey by Jisc to surface student preference, device use, and emerging trends to consider in your practice and demonstrate how AppsAnywhere aims to reduce barriers to success with a holistic approach to application access and delivery focused on student experience and IT efficiency.  

Meet other members of the community to discuss how you are embedding immersive technologies for learning and teaching. Connect with peers, exchange ideas, and enhance your knowledge in this collaborative learning experience.

Selecting the right AI for assessment is critical to ensuring accuracy, consistency, and explainability. While large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT dominate AI discussions, are they truly the best fit for grading and feedback? In this session, we’ll explore why the University of Birmingham partnered with Graide and how Classification AI offers a more reliable and scalable alternative to generative AI for assessment. You’ll gain insights into: 

• Classification AI vs. generative AI 
• Which delivers better assessment outcomes? 
• Key AI considerations 
• What matters when choosing an assessment partner? 
• Beyond LLMs 
• AI-driven grading solutions that enhance accuracy and fairness
• Real-world impact
• How Graide helps institutions scale high-quality assessment.

Join us to discover a practical, AI-powered approach to assessment that moves beyond the limitations of LLMs.

Exam and assessment processes are often manual, based on large Excel documents, and ripe for improvement. While eAssessment is here to stay, a hybrid approach is more practical in Universities and Colleges to achieve digital transformation efficiencies and improve the student/academic experience. Imagine an end-to-end platform that handles both paper and digital exams and covers everything from exam authoring, approval, logistics, and marking! 

In this 10-minute session, Piero Tintori, CEO of BetterExaminations, will reveal how his groundbreaking platform is redefining exam management and eAssessment by streamlining operations, enhancing the academic and student experiences, and automating time-consuming tasks. 

See how emerging technologies and digital transformation are revolutionising assessments, making them more efficient, scalable, and future-ready—delivering real impact for universities, educators, and students alike. 

The human-computer interface has been relatively static since the early years of the PC, but a new range of digital interfaces are promising to transform how we think, act, and relate to one another. 

This keynote examines what neurological implants, gesture control, eye tracking, and wearable technologies have to do with your digital lives and how a new era of embodied technology is shaping the next phase of human evolution. 

Attendees will discover the technology trends shaping the next 20 years, the societal conversations that are responding to these shifts, and what they mean for emerging learners and our wider information society. 

This presentation will take you on a journey from the high performance world of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games to the forthcoming Enhanced Games and Olympic Esports Games, which set the scene for our phygital - physical and digital - futures.

Find out how to improve your confidence and meet other likeminded people who are keen to get creative and experiment with their storytelling.

In this podcast hear further thoughts from University of Leeds and University of Northampton on how they are using Jisc's research on international students’ digital experience, alongside building digital capability and insights from student survey data. 

Learn how they've shaped their support systems to better assist international students and foster a more inclusive digital experience for all.

In this student experience panel in partnership with the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA), we will hear about the digital issues faced by international students when they come to study in UK higher education. 

We will explore the nature of ‘digital shocks’ on crossing digital borders and what higher education providers can do to help smooth their transitions. This builds on our researching international students' digital experience work over the past two years and the growing importance of ensuring international students have an equitable experience whilst studying in the UK. 

The panel comprises a range of international voices, highlighting global regional differences in prior digital experience.

Artificial intelligence has revolutionised how learners engage with education, acting as a positive disruptor to promote engagement by providing the flexibility to learn at their convenience. At Activate Learning, we are integrating our unique Learning Philosophy with the use of AI to enhance teaching, learning and assessment. 

This session will spotlight ALIA, the Activate Learning Intelligent Assistant, an in-house developed solution that builds efficiencies for staff in curriculum and business areas, and Activate AI Tutor, which provides immediate feedback, encourages a growth mindset, and helps learners practice at their own pace. 

In this panel discussion, several colleges will feedback how they have made use of the digital elevation tool to efficiently kickstart their own digital transformation journeys and digital strategies.

In today's fast-changing digital world, universities and colleges must anticipate and prepare for future challenges to stay resilient and relevant. But how can we plan without a crystal ball? 

The session starts with two lightning talks exploring different approaches. Charles will present the GÉANT Foresight 2030 study, highlighting key opportunities and challenges for the National Research and Education Network (NREN) community, and Gül will share insights from the Dutch education and research ecosystem and how strategic foresight is applied in the Netherlands. 

Participants will then work together with a tool (futures triangle) to get a feeling for how to navigate the digital transformation.

15:45 - 16:00    

Jisc's chief executive officer Heidi Fraser-Krauss closes this year's Digifest