13 - 15 July 2027
Institute Conference
Come together with students and staff from around the world to explore what partnership makes possible in higher education.
Registrations opening soon
13 - 15 July 2027
Come together with students and staff from around the world to explore what partnership makes possible in higher education.
Registrations opening soon
The Global Institute Conference creates space to share ideas, research, practices and experiences shaping co-design through partnership and relationship-rich education. Through keynotes, interactive workshops, research and practice presentations, panels and facilitated conversations, you will encounter new perspectives, contribute your own experiences and build meaningful international connections.
What is — and should remain — distinctly human and relational in higher education? How do our practices of making meaning and sharing stories spark learning and create community? How does where we are, who we are, and who we are with matter in higher education? In the age of Gen AI, our answers to these questions both inform and are informed by the practice of partnership. This conference will showcase inspirations and stories, essential practices, equity, voice and representation, and emerging possibilities of student-faculty and student-staff partnership.
Decades of research demonstrate that students are most likely to thrive in higher education when they connect in educationally purposeful ways with academic staff and peers (Felten & Lambert, 2020). Partnership mindsets and practices are central to this kind of relationship-rich education (Cook-Sather et al., 2026) and are being explored in educational contexts worldwide (e.g., Dai et al., 2024). Partnerships can also be practised expansively, embracing “whole class co-construction” and similar approaches that can engage many, or perhaps all, students in this work (Bovill, 2020; Cook-Sather, forthcoming). By centring partnerships in our work — and in this conference — we create conditions for learning, well-being, and transformation.
The rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) presents fundamental challenges to long-standing higher education practices and assumptions — how should we teach and assess, what does it mean to learn and to demonstrate expertise, and why engage in higher education at all if machines are “intelligent”? Gen AI also raises new questions about what partnership is and with whom — or with what — educationally meaningful relationships can be formed (Matthews, 2025).
Over the course of three days spent together at the University of Wollongong, Australia, we will explore these questions and more as we critically engage with the past and future of partnerships and relationships in higher education.
Whatever your chosen relationship-rich education area of focus, we invite proposals for a range of sessions that connect with one or more of the following sub-themes:
What sparked your interest in student-faculty/staff partnership? What kinds of relationships does your work build on and foster? What challenges or opportunities do you, or could you, address in and through partnership? How do you sustain partnerships—and how do they sustain you? These stories might focus practically or critically on your partnership experiences, or they might imagine new possibilities.
What is at the heart of partnership practices and educational relationships? How can we nurture those essentials? At what scale do partnerships best thrive – pairs, small groups, whole class, or institution-wide? How do – or how should – Indigenous values and epistemologies influence partnerships and relationships? And, does Gen AI present new possibilities for or perils for partnerships and relational education? What can we see more clearly when we think about partnership and educational relationships through the lens of emerging technologies?
Who and what has been missing, left out, or otherwise not well addressed (yet) by pedagogical partnerships and relational pedagogies? Whose stories have not been told – or not been listened to as carefully as they should? How do we make space for different or less-prominent voices in partnerships and in the relational pedagogies movement? What might these voices and stories disrupt, clarify, and reveal about partnerships and relationships in higher education? And how do culture and context shape partnerships?
What will the next decade hold for and require of partnership work and relational education? Where and how could new forms of partnership and educational relationships evolve? Who or what will be involved? What does partnership suggest about the future of learning assessment and teaching practice in the time of Gen AI? How can partnerships and relationships help us address the grand challenges facing our disciplines, institutions, communities, and world?
The full conference program and keynote speakers will be announced soon.
Join us in Wollongong for the full on-campus experience, or connect through our curated virtual program if travelling to Australia is not possible.
Be here for the conversations, the community and the full experience.
Choose from the full range of parallel conference sessions, including campus-only workshops, outdoor campfire conversations and place-based explorations. Connect face to face with students and staff from around the world—in sessions, over shared breaks and through the conversations in between.
Extend your experience with optional pre-Institute workshops and social activities. Access to the curated virtual program and its recordings also allows you to revisit selected sessions.
Bring your perspective to the global conversation—from wherever you are.
Take part through a curated combination of live keynotes, selected sessions broadcast from one campus room across the three days, and dedicated interactive online sessions. Morning and late-afternoon Australian windows create opportunities to participate live across different time zones, with recordings available to catch up afterwards.
A meaningful option for those unable to travel, with opportunities to share practice, contribute to discussion and explore international perspectives. Online access covers the curated program; not all campus sessions are streamed or recorded.
Registration options and prices are being finalised. Early bird, student and staff rates are planned, with in-person and online participation options.
Prices, inclusions, payment and booking links will be published once confirmed. Optional workshops and social activities may have separate arrangements.
The Global Institute for Students as Partners brings together two distinct programs running concurrently from 13–15 July 2027: the Institute Conference (viewing now) and the Change Institute. Because the two programs take place at the same time, participants cannot register for both. However, shared keynotes, social events and selected Institute activities will bring both groups together.
The Chand Institute is a three-day, in-person, facilitated program combining institutional team-based activities, critical reflection, mentoring and action planning.
We welcome abstracts for research papers, practice-oriented papers, interactive workshops, place-based practice explorations, panels, posters and Campfire Conversations.
Every abstract must connect with the overarching conference theme and nominate exactly one primary conference sub-theme. Additional secondary sub-themes are optional. Presentation formats have different submission requirements and in-person or online participation options.
Abstract submissions close 1 March 2027.
Explore the format descriptions, participation modes and abstract guidelines on the dedicated submissions page.