On Friday 25th April 2025, we held our annual Learning and Teaching Conference at our Fitzrovia campus, chaired by Paul Williams, Director of Scholarship and Research at Regent College London (RCL).
This year’s conference theme was “Inspire & Engage: Showcasing our RCL Pedagogies and Practices”. The focus was on sharing innovative yet grounded pedagogical methods that reconnect with core educational principles, emphasising meaningful student-centred experiences and depth over complexity.
The conference was a tremendous success. It featured thought-provoking research and commentary from RCL academics, fantastic visiting speakers from Advance HE, and our long-standing academic partner, the University of Greater Manchester (UGM).
Exploring the psychology of inspiration and engagement
For the third consecutive year, we welcomed Professor Patrick McGhee, Assistant Vice Chancellor at UGM, as our keynote speaker. His presentation, “The psychology of inspiration and engagement,” used real-time voting software to create an interactive experience. It enabled attendees to share their answers to questions such as “What has inspired you in your life?”
Reflecting on the conference, Patrick comments:
“Education often moves from basic to advanced skills too quickly, ultimately diluting student engagement. The optimal approach is more balanced – learners only progress to advanced topics once they have mastered the fundamentals. This year’s conference was an excellent opportunity for academics to reconnect with the key principles that support students and their academic development.”
Strengthening practice through educational frameworks
As a proud member institution of Advance HE, we were delighted to invite Head of Membership (Tertiary) Karen Taylor to present at our Learning and Teaching Conference 2025.
Karen spoke about the Professional Standards Framework (PSF) – a globally recognised framework for benchmarking success within higher education – and how aligning to this can highlight areas of activity and enable students to understand core knowledge more deeply.
Karen also spoke about the importance of Fellowship in today’s landscape and encouraged RCL staff to access Advance HE’s continuing professional development (CPD) offerings and resources.
“It was fantastic to attend this conference. Each of the presentations explored the theme uniquely and engagingly. I look forward to seeing how RCL’s academic team harnesses today’s insights to develop their educational practices and approach further.”
Thank you to everyone who made RCL’s Learning and Teaching Conference 2025 an insightful and memorable event. Our Research and Scholarship team publish a quarterly journal featuring contributions from RCL academics. Our Q2 2025 edition will be themed around this year’s conference, so keep an eye out for updates!
In the meantime, why not check out the latest editions of Quarterly below?
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