How Academic Conferences Boost University Reputation

Did you know students spend more than 15 minutes researching faculty profiles before choosing their courses? In today’s digital era, students want more than a syllabus—they’re looking for professors who inspire, mentor, and offer real-world impact. Student choices are driven by: - Professor credentials, research, and teaching style. - Reviews, testimonials, and academic achievements. - Publications, conference talks, and open educational materials. - Presence across Google Scholar, LinkedIn, ORCID, and university portals. Key stats: - On average, students spend 15–30 minutes comparing faculty backgrounds for their shortlisted courses. - 70% of students say a faculty member’s online presence and accessibility influence their enrolment decisions. - 60% use online platforms and social media to check professors’ research interests before registering. The impact? Professors with curated websites and research profiles attract higher student interest—and foster stronger mentorship and collaboration. Question for you: 1. How much time do you spend researching professors before making your academic choices? 2. What matters most when selecting a course or mentor? #StudentPerspective #AcademicChoices #DigitalEducation #KnowYourFaculty #FacultyProfiles #CourseSelection

📣𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗛𝘂𝗯: 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁 𝟮𝟱-𝗝𝗮𝗻 𝟮𝟲 👉Want to find out more about the latest educational developments while learning from colleagues from other universities? Then this is your chance to participate in workshops and courses from different universities in the Netherlands. University teaching staff can develop professionally through a national offering compiled by Dutch universities united in the Professional Development Exchange Hub. From Rotterdam to Maastricht, Amsterdam to Groningen, there are face-to-face meetings, online courses, webinars and hybrid events at various locations and dates.   This allows you to deepen your teaching skills in current topics such as innovative technology, diversity and inclusion, assessment, sustainable development goals or interdisciplinary teaching. The institutions make it possible for teachers to choose from a rich, varied offer that suits their own development and interests, without being tied to a fixed location. 🔗Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/e_a93dsK #EDLAB #teaching #learning

On October 2 and 3, we participated in the QS Quacquarelli Symonds Summit of the Americas in BA Argentina. Participating in the World Rankings allows universities to enter a cycle of continuous improvement based on global standards. The rankings are not an end, but a means to improve the academic quality of universities. It's very interesting to see the progress of emerging universities. We heard testimonies of improvement both globally and by discipline, and in terms of impact on the SDGs. These spaces also allow for strategic networking and the exchange of best practices. In general, my recommendations for participating in the Rankings are basically three: Firstly, Global Visibility and Talent Attraction Rankings are one of the most visible and easily compared metrics used by prospective students, top-tier academics, and researchers worldwide. A strong position in rankings like QS Quacquarelli Symonds or Times Higher Education serves as a powerful marketing and branding tool, acting as an international "stamp of quality." This visibility is crucial for attracting the best and brightest international students—who often rely on these lists to shortlist universities—as well as high-profile faculty who want to be associated with a prestigious, world-class institution.   Strategic Benchmarking and Quality Improvement The process of submitting data for rankings forces a university to conduct a rigorous self-assessment and collect standardized data on key performance indicators (KPIs). This allows university leadership to benchmark their performance against national and international peers in specific areas like research output, faculty-student ratios, international outlook, and (in the case of GreenMetrics) sustainability efforts. This data is invaluable for identifying institutional strengths and weaknesses, informing strategic planning, and driving internal quality improvements.   Enhanced Partnerships and Funding Opportunities A high rank significantly enhances a university's reputation, making it a more attractive partner for international collaborations, research consortiums, and industry-academia partnerships. Furthermore, many government funding bodies, philanthropic foundations, and private donors look at rankings as a measure of an institution's capacity and impact. A strong ranking can, therefore, improve a university's competitiveness in securing large-scale research grants and other forms of funding. Universidad del Caribe, Dominican Republic, QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education,@Academic Ranking of World Universities, UI GreenMetric World University Rankings, Asociación Dominicana de Rectores de Universidades

What opportunities are invisible professors missing? - In today’s digital age, online visibility is critical for academic success. Here’s what faculty risk by being invisible online: - As per Symplectic, over 60% of research collaborations now start through active online faculty profiles, meaning invisible professors miss out on key joint projects. - DigitalCommons at University of Nebraska-Lincoln stats that more than 70% of students rely on online faculty profiles to seek mentorship and choose courses—without visibility, mentorship opportunities diminish. - AACSB also states that professors with digital portfolios receive 2–3 times more industry connections for consulting, speaking, and collaborations than those listed only on institutional sites. - Faculty with a strong online presence gain up to 40% more citations and broader recognition due to enhanced discoverability. Digital presence is not about vanity—it's essential for expanding your impact, network, and opportunities. What opportunities do you hope to unlock by building your digital profile? #KnowYourFaculty #AcademicVisibility #ResearchCollaboration #Mentorship #FacultyWebsites #HigherEducation

WUT Delegation at the CESAER Annual Meeting at Brno University of Technology From October 22 to 24, 2025, the annual meeting of the CESAER association, which brings together over 50 leading technical universities primarily from Europe, was held at Brno University of Technology. The Warsaw University of Technology (WUT) Politechnika Warszawska was represented by a delegation consisting of prof. Robert Zajdler from the Faculty of Administration and Social Sciences — head of the CESAER team at WUT (Institutional Liaison), Małgorzata Płaszczyca from the Strategic Analysis Office — member of the Task Force Benchmark working group, and Grzegorz Robak Director of the Centre for International Cooperation, who also took part in the discussion “Governance and Strategic Vision of European Universities Alliances” and in the meeting of the Task Force Learning & Teaching. The CESAER team at WUT currently includes 11 academic and administrative staff members. The first day was devoted to meetings of working groups and institutional networks. In the afternoon, parallel workshops were held, including the session “Navigating Challenges and Opportunities in Responsible Internationalisation” and a discussion on “Governance and Strategic Vision of European Universities Alliances.” During this discussion, Grzegorz Robak delivered a presentation on building an ecosystem for the European Universities initiative at both the university level and in international bodies. Since 2020, WUT has been a member of the ENHANCE Alliance. All 10 ENHANCE partner universities are also members of CESAER. WUT’s engagement within ENHANCE primarily focuses on creating and developing short learning formats as elements of micro-credential programs. The second day began with a meeting of the CESAER Presidency, followed by a session of the Board of Directors. In the afternoon, the conference “Shaping the Future of STEM Education: Advancing Excellence through Transnational Cooperation” took place, featuring speakers such as Vanessa Debiais-Sainton (European Commission), Babi Mitry (Director of the New Engineering Education Transformation program at MIT), and Nicolas PETER (European Space Agency). On the final day, the assembly elected a new board, discussed key strategic issues, and outlined the association’s priorities and directions for the upcoming year. The CESAER Annual Meeting 2025 in Brno reaffirmed that cooperation among European technical universities plays a vital role in fostering innovation and internationalisation. The event also provided an important platform for discussions on the future of European higher education.

🌐 Inspiring Visit from Professor Peter Bryant This week, we were delighted to welcome Peter for a thought-provoking #Digital #Roundtable and Interactive academic publishing workshop. Peter shared his #innovative approach to #connected learning and the design of #digital #learning #experiences that foster student #agency, #personalisation, and meaningful #engagement. Following this, Peter delivered a highly practical and engaging #workshop — The #Scholarship of #Education: Business education research publishing: Pipelines, practices and pitfalls The session equipped education-focused academics with tools and strategies to: 📘 Navigate the academic publishing process with confidence 🎯 Identify impactful journals and conferences 🧭 Understand the peer review process and manage reviewer feedback 🚫 Avoid common pitfalls such as predatory journals and conferences 💡 Build a sustainable research and publishing profile A huge thank you to Peter for sharing his expertise and passion for building scholarly capacity and innovation in business education. 👏 #HigherEducation #DigitalLearning #AcademicPublishing #ConnectedLearning #BusinessEducation #ResearchImpact #ProfessionalDevelopment

🎙️✨ Speaking up about what keeps teaching meaningful ✨🎙️ I’m excited to take the stage at the WERA Focal Meeting 2025 in João Pessoa to share insights that drive my work as a researcher and practitioner: 📌 The Social-Conative Perspective of Optimal Teaching Experience: The Role of Students in Teachers’ Flow State My core question: 👉 What still allows teachers to feel deeply engaged and fulfilled in their profession, despite rising burnout worldwide? Findings from my research are unequivocal: Teachers’ flow state — that optimal moment where teaching becomes joyfully immersive — is grounded in three essential social-conative determinants: 1️⃣ Quality of relationships with students: trust, cooperation and mutual recognition 2️⃣ Sense of personal efficacy: feeling competent in pedagogy and classroom management 3️⃣ Sense of collective efficacy: belonging to a supportive and collaborative professional community 🌱 When these three drivers align, they cultivate professional well-being and fulfillment — what I call bienvivance — where teachers can do well while feeling well. This perspective draws on flow theory, self-determination theory, and agency-based approaches to highlight systemic levers that can: ✅ Strengthen engagement and professional identity ✅ Protect against psychosocial risks ✅ Improve teacher retention and stability ✅ Boost student learning — because a teacher in flow brings others with them 🧩 In essence: • Relationships fuel meaning. • Self-efficacy fuels action. • Collective efficacy fuels vocation. 📍 WERA 2025 — Brazil Honored to contribute to this international conversation and to defend a clear stance: 💛 Education is, and must remain, a profoundly human endeavor. 🔖 #Flow #FlowTeaching #TeacherWellbeing #ProfessionalFulfillment #QualityRelationships #SelfEfficacy #CollectiveEfficacy #MotivationInTeaching #PositivePsychology #EducationResearch #WERA2025 #TeacherEngagement #SocialConativePerspective #RecognitionInEducation #BurnoutPrevention Université Catholique de Lille / Université de Lille

The divergence among consultancy, research, and academia stems largely from misaligned objectives and timelines. Academic research prioritizes foundational knowledge, rigor, and peer-reviewed publication, often operating on long cycles. Conversely, consultancy is driven by immediate, applied, and proprietary problem-solving for clients, demanding rapid, pragmatic solutions. This difference in purpose—knowledge for its own sake versus knowledge for immediate commercial gain—creates cultural and structural friction between the three domains. To achieve synchronization, deliberate institutional and individual bridges must be built across these worlds. This involves creating joint appointments and collaborative centers where academics, consultants, and researchers co-create projects. Structured internships and sabbaticals for academics in industry and vice versa can foster mutual understanding and a shared vocabulary. Furthermore, universities must revise tenure and promotion systems to explicitly recognize and reward high-impact, applied research and consulting activities. In this integrated scenario, the primary loss is the potential dilution of 'pure' or foundational academic research, which may be sidelined in favor of immediately 'relevant' commercial problems. Academics might also sacrifice intellectual freedom, as client-driven projects can impose confidentiality restrictions or narrow research scope. However, the gains are substantial, including access to real-world data and problems that validate and enrich theoretical models. This application-driven context also ensures that research outputs are highly relevant and have a direct, measurable societal or economic impact. Successful synchronization leads to a virtuous cycle where consultancy provides real-time, critical issues to inform academic research agendas, making scholarly work more practical. Academic rigor, in turn, introduces robust methodologies and evidence-based insights to consulting practice, elevating its quality beyond mere experience. This interdependency creates a dynamic environment, producing highly skilled graduates who are both theoretically grounded and industry-ready. Ultimately, aligning these three components builds a more resilient and impactful knowledge ecosystem. Academia gains external funding and a clearer mission for societal engagement, while industry benefits from cutting-edge, validated solutions. The synergy accelerates innovation, ensuring that research moves swiftly from the lab to the market, generating both new theoretical understanding and practical economic value. #AcademiaIndustryBridge #KnowledgeEcosystem #AppliedResearch #ConsultancySynergy #ImpactfulInnovation

Five years ago, when I started writing about non-academic careers for PhDs, there was a question someone asked that wouldn't leave me. The person was worried that if they worked outside of academia, they would no longer get to do academic/scholarly work. I didn't have clear answers then. Five years on, the answer is YES. YES you can still participate in academic and scholarly work without being employed by an academic institution. From my interviews with PhDs in non-academic roles who are still drawn by the scholarly side of things, this has looked like: 1. Participating in discipline-related organizations where they get to collaborate with academics within academia. 2. Continuing to publish peer-reviewed articles. 3. Adjunct work. Personally, I've had the privilege of: ✅ publishing papers ✅ getting a book contract with an academic press (I talk about how I got the book deal in my most recent episode of The Bold PhD Podcast. I'll leave a link below.) ✅ giving talks and workshops at universities I'd also like to point out that public scholarship - where you communicate ideas but make it accessible to the general public is also scholarly work! You can perform academic work without being employed by an academic institution. Happy Monday.

💡 Thinking about doing a systematic review? Here’s a free resource worth saving! 🎁 This open-access book walks you through: 📖 The differences between systematic, scoping, and configurative reviews 🌐 Tackling broad topics like “student engagement” 🔍 Working with qualitative and mixed-methods evidence ✨ Tips for publishing and finding strong examples ⚖️ Ethical issues that most guides skip In any research field, it’s essential to embed your topic within the broader scholarly framework 🌐. Doing so allows researchers to: Build upon the existing body of knowledge 📖 Identify gaps in the literature 🔍 Provide a clear rationale for the research questions under investigation 🎯 For all researchers—especially doctoral students and early-career scholars 🎓—familiarity with the existing literature is crucial. Conducting a systematic review is an excellent way to achieve this, offering a structured approach to understanding and mapping a research area 🧩. As educational researchers in learning design, educational technology, and open & distance learning 💻, this work has been informed by both quantitative and qualitative empirical methods 📊. Some of our team were familiar with content analysis using text-mining tools to map research trends in journals on distance education, educational technology, and international education (e.g., Zawacki-Richter & Naidu, 2016; Bond & Buntins, 2018; Bedenlier et al., 2018). The funding program aimed to support empirical research in digital higher education, focusing on the effectiveness and outcomes of current digital delivery approaches in university teaching and learning 🎓💡. This presented a unique opportunity to apply systematic review methods to explore and synthesize evidence in the field 🔄. #ResearchMethods #SystematicReview #EducationalResearch #EdTech #DigitalLearning #HigherEducation #AcademicResearch #EvidenceBased #LearningDesign #DistanceEducation #EarlyCareerResearch #InnovationInEducation