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Keynote Speakers
Each year our keynote speakers provide the backbone to our annual TIRAE conference. On day 1 we are delighted that Acting Vice Chancellor Dr Greg Walker has agreed to open the batting. He is immediately followed by our own Professor Christian Harrison, who is presenting on ‘Leadership in the 21st century’.
After lunch we are joined by our first external speaker, Professor Caroline Wilkinson from John Moore’s University who will be delivering what promises to be a fascinating talk entitled ‘Bringing Research to Life’. Professor Wilkinson is an anthropologist specialising in forensic facial reconstruction. As well as contributing to television programmes, she has reconstructed the heads of Richard III of England and Robert the Bruce of Scotland.
On day 2 we resume with a presentation focused on block learning and the Greater Manchester Way. Our speaker is Professor Kerri Lee-Krause, Chief Commissioner of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) joining online from Australia. Professor Lee-Krause is well known to many colleagues in the TIRIAE audience following her talk at the Bolton Wanderers stadium earlier this year.
We then welcome Professor Mike Sharples, Emeritus Professor of Educational Technology at The Open University. Colleagues have been trying to book Professor Sharples for several years, and so we are indebted to Dr Sarah Telfer for finally pulling this off. His talk is entitled ‘Innovating Teaching, Learning and Assessment with Generative AI’ clearly a relevant topic in contemporary higher education.
Our final keynote speaker is again one of our own, Professor Paul Hollins with his talk entitled ‘The Power of gaming to influence Policy on Climate Change’.
Professor Hollins says
“The Climate crisis is arguably THE issue that the global communities are currently facing and at a time when citizens’ confidence, specifically younger citizens’ confidence in the government’s ability to tackle these challenges, is extremely low. There are two dilemmas, how do governments engage with traditionally difficult to reach younger voters and how do voters engage with government to effect policy change in critical domains. Here at the University of Greater Manchester (UGM) we are part of a multinational consortium as part of the Games Realising Effective and Affective Transformation or (GREAT) EU and UKRI funded project. The project is attempting to address these very questions through working with global digital games communities, game developers and key stakeholders such as the United Nations Development Programme.”
Professor Paul Hollins will talk about the largest survey ever undertaken on these issues engaging with over a million gamers producing over 200,000 survey responses across 180 countries, focusing on the questions: ‘What do players think about climate change issues and what role can digital games and digital game industry 'play' in effecting real change at policy level?’
Breakout sessions
We wanted to cover the depth and breadth of everything we do, and so, to make TIRIAE 2025 as inclusive as possible we asked colleagues submitting abstracts to consider the following domains:
Assessment
Curriculum design
Student experience
Research
Teaching and learning
There are five breakout sessions. Where possible, we have matched each room to one of the broad topics. Sessions include workshops, 20-minute presentations and 7-minute lightening talks. Posters will also be displayed. Please take time to visit the breakout sessions and support our students and colleagues, many of whom will travel to Bolton from our many off-campus partners.
The ‘hidden gems’
The TIRIAE conference is how we deliver our core values of inclusivity, innovation, civic engagement, and academic excellence. This year we have tried to reach out to as many people as we can. Colleagues from professional and support services are joining us to provide insights and updates around their vital work that keeps the university running smoothly. Innovation, either through pedagogical research, topic related research or quality improvement all serve the TIRIAE mission. However, the hidden gem of any conference is the hidden curriculum, and the chance to network and meet new people with fresh ideas. For example, on Wednesday September 3rd, Professor Mo Sadiq will be running live teaching demonstrations in the SLZ.
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