HE Connect 26 conference programme

Let’s make digital in higher education better

The conference is tailored for digital leaders in higher education and features 2 packed days with a carefully curated mixture of talks, workshops, activities and world class facilitators, thought-provokers, speakers and session leads.

Unlike many other conferences, this one is not about speakers talking endlessly about their own work. Rather than being talked at, this is your conference for active participation and connecting with your peers with the goal to move things forward.

Please note that the below is a draft programme. Changes will happen.

Programme
Tuesday, October 6

7:30 - 8:30: Morning walk

Kick off the conference with a morning walk through Edinburgh's historical landmarks.

8:30 - 9:30: Breakfast and registration

Join us early, get the conversation started, make some new friends and enjoy some freshly brewed coffee and tea.

9:30 - 9:45: Welcome & Opening

by our host Janus Boye, Boye & Co

More session details coming shortly.

More session details coming shortly.

More session details coming shortly.

11:00 - 11:30 Coffee & networking

How do you improve a digital estate when you cannot clearly explain what it contains, why each website exists or where differences are genuinely needed?

Over five years, the University of Copenhagen has worked to bring structure to its sprawling collection of websites while moving from a proprietary platform to the open source CMS TYPO3. The project has involved gaining an overview of the entire estate, grouping sites by purpose, breaking them down into manageable products and deciding what to standardise - and what should remain distinct.

As Chief Digital Advisor, Johannes Nygaard has been closely involved in both the technology transition and the wider organisational transformation. He will share the choices, compromises and lessons behind the project, including how the university is simplifying its estate and making better use of the technology it already has.

The work is becoming even more important as prospective students, search engines and AI systems all need to find and interpret university content. You will leave with practical lessons for modernising technology, reducing complexity and creating a digital estate that is easier to understand, govern and improve.

More session details coming shortly.

12:30 - 1:30 Lunch

1:30 - 2:30 Roundtables

Come join 2 x 25 minutes of informal roundtable discussions to get answers on your specific questions or help others by sharing your expert knowledge.
Each table has no more than 10 attendees and is assigned a specific topic and moderator.
First come first served: you don’t get to see who’s at the table until you get there.

After the initial 25 minutes are up, you get to pick another table for the next 25 minutes of discussion.

Tables:
1. Our progress with getting found in AI answer engines (AEO, GEO, SEO) with Johannes Nygaard from University of Copenhagen.

More information coming soon

2:30 - 3:00 Coffee & networking

University communications cannot stop once a prospective student enrols. The challenge is to build relationships that continue through university life, into alumni engagement and across the wider university community.

Drawing on her work at Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid, Lucía will explore how content, video and personalisation can support these different relationships without creating fragmented experiences.

You will leave with practical ideas for making communications more relevant at each stage while maintaining a coherent institutional voice.

More session details coming shortly.

4:30 - 5:00 Coffee & networking

5:00 - 6:00 Lightning Talks

As the name suggests, lightning talks give speakers a limited amount of time to make their presentation – around 10 minutes. They may or may not include slides.

Because lightning talks are brief, it requires the speaker to make their point clearly and rid the presentation of non-critical information. This, in turn, helps keep the attention of the audience. It also means many ideas can be presented in a short amount of time.

Talks:

• TBA with Jens Krumm (DE), CEO at +Pluswerk

• TBA with Gavin Colborne (UK), Managing Director at Little Forest

• More coming soon
  

6:30 - 10:00 Social event

Join us for an informal networking dinner.

Wednesday, October 7

7:00 Morning Run

We meet together for a relaxed 25 minute run.

8:30 - 9:30 Breakfast and networking

Join us early, get the conversation started, reflect on what you’ve already learned and enjoy some freshly brewed coffee and tea.

9:30 - 9:45: Morning welcome

A brief welcome by Janus Boye and perhaps a bonus lightning talk.

More session details coming shortly.

More session details coming shortly.

10:45 - 11:00 Coffee & networking

Digital feels like it should be a solved problem. It’s been happening for more than 30 years. So why do organisations still find it such a challenge to deliver great digital experiences?

The problem is rarely the technology. It’s how the organisation is set up for digital success: who owns the experience; how decisions get made; where capacity goes; and how work actually gets delivered.

This is an active working session. In groups, we’ll tackle messy, real-world problems and decide what to change, what to prioritise and what to leave alone. You’ll leave with a way of thinking you can put to work in your own organisation.

Better digital doesn’t start with better technology. It starts with designing the organisation to make it work.

The University of Limerick’s course pages had grown around internal structures rather than the needs of prospective students. Undergraduate and postgraduate courses looked different, lived on separate content types and created an inconsistent journey through one of the university’s most important digital experiences.

A major redesign offered the opportunity to rethink the entire journey. Guided by UX research, the team created course pages around what prospective students actually need, merged two content types into one and brought all recruitment information together at ul.ie/study.

They also introduced faceted course search, browsing by area of interest and side-by-side course comparison.

This session will share the research, decisions and practical challenges behind the redesign. You will leave with ideas for simplifying complex course information, overcoming organisational fragmentation and creating a more coherent journey for prospective students.

12:30 - 1:30 Lunch

More session details coming shortly.

A brief interactive wrap-up of the two days. Join us for key lessons learned, big questions for 2026, perhaps a few answers and what happens next.

2.45 - 3:00 Goodbyes and see you next year!

Thanks for joining us. Continue the conversation over a cup of coffee or tea before leaving Edinburgh.