News

This expression of interest form supports the WIHEA Learning Circle Fair being held online on 5 November, it invites anyone attending the Fair or seeing the recording to express their interest in joining any of the Learning Circles featured.

*** Please ensure you are fully logged on in order to access the form ***

Please submit this form no later than Wednesday, 19 November (the form will close after this date and membership requests thereafter, should be emailed directly to the relevant Learning Circle Lead(s)).

For further information on the Learning Circle's please visit the Learning Circle web pages.

We would like to invite you to the second meeting of the Warwick Anti-Racism Staff Forum, scheduled to take place on MS Teams on Thursday, 13 November 2025, from 11:00AM - 12:00PM Please register to attend here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academy/activities/learningcircles/anti-racistpedagogyandprocess/staffforumregistration

Our topic will be 'Racism is awful, so what can I do to help?'

Do you ever find yourself thinking, "I want to do something, but I don't know what, because racism is just too big"?

We (Karoline and Poonam) both found ourselves asking similar questions. As professional services staff members, we found it difficult to identify our spheres of influence for this work.

In this interactive session, we will outline our own journeys with carving out a role for us to play in anti-racism, and we will encourage you to think about areas in which you can play a part too.

Our session aims are to:

• Share practical examples from others' experience
• Offer inspiration to colleagues who may struggle to identify their role in this work

We probably can't give you all your answers, but we can share our own roadmaps in the hope that they may help you, too!

There is no required pre-reading, other than a set of agreements about how we will conduct our discussions. You do not need to have attended previous meetings to join this one. Forum meetings are structured to enable us to learn from the varied practices and experiences of colleagues in a wide range of roles.

The Warwick Anti-Racism Staff Forum comes out of the work of the WIHEA Anti-Racist Pedagogy and Practices in HE Learning Circle. It is open to all those who work at Warwick, including professional services and academic staff with an existing anti-racism practice, as well as those interested in or curious about developing one. Each meeting, we will share practice and discuss key challenges affecting different staff roles across the university. We invite you to share your suggestions for future topics here (anonymously if you wish): https://forms.office.com/e/Yh33f9eH8p.

Attendance requires that Forum participants arrive on time for any meeting they attend, ready to engage in the meeting fully by that time. Our experience has shown that later arrivals make it much harder to establish and maintain shared agreements for open, honest and thoughtful discussion.

Once you have registered, we will send over our participant agreements, the Teams invite and some optional pre-readings. Please do register promptly if you are interested, and encourage your colleagues to do so, too.

The third Neurodiversity in Higher Education Conference The third Neurodiversity in Higher Education Conference took place at the University of Warwick on 15th September 2025, bringing together 110 attendees including higher education professionals, students, and community members. The event explored neurodiversity in university settings through a dynamic programme of research presentations, posters, interactive seminars, panel discussions, and creative workshops.

Professor Gina Rippon (Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Neuroimaging, Aston University) opened the conference with a keynote based on her latest book, The Lost Girls of Autism: How Science Failed Autistic Women – and the New Research that's Changing the Story. Closing the event, Dr Brian Irvine (UCL Centre for Research in Autism and Education) delivered an inspiring keynote titled Hopeful Optimism.

The conference was generously supported by the Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WHEA), Warwick Inclusive Education, and the Warwick Dean of Students. Special thanks go to ASD@Warwick, the Warwick ADHD Society, and the Scientific and Organising Committees for their vital contributions.

The event was led by Alumni Dr Jagjeet Jutley-Neilson (Department of Psychology) and Professor Olympia Palikara(Education Studies, SELCS), alongside a dedicated team of colleagues, researchers and students, reflecting a truly collaborative effort to advance understanding and inclusion in higher education.

We are pleased to share that Warwick students and staff in all roles are invited to participate in focus groups and co-design workshops to inform development of trauma-informed practice in higher education. Trauma-informed practice acknowledges the commonplace nature of traumatic experiences and their impacts on individuals and communities. It aims to ensure that these experiences are accommodated in individual and organisational practices, to create safe, engaging, and collaborative learning environments and promote inclusion for all students and staff. Further to initial funding from the MWA Education Exchange Scheme in 2024 (formerly managed by WIHEA/MEA), this cross-institutional project, funded by the Monash Warwick Alliance, aims to develop trauma-informed practice in higher education settings. Click here to find out more and get involved.

WIHEA’s Compassionate Pedagogies Learning Circle has released a series of podcasts. This is a more informal way to catch up with the Learning Circle activities, so if you are new to WIHEA and interested in compassion, this is a great place to start! In this series, what is compassion and the role of compassion across our university spaces and what’s coming next for the Compassionate Pedagogy Learning Circle.

Led by Dr Thomas Greenaway, Amy Stickles and Dr Mujthaba Ahtamad, WIHEA’s (Open) Designing and Assessing Groupwork Learning Circle has created a new interactive guide to support staff with designing assessed group work tasks. The guide offers design principles, examples and links to relevant academic literature to enable staff to design group work to achieve the outcome that you desire for your students. To view the guide or if you are interested in finding out more about the Learning Circle's plans Link opens in a new windowfor the next academic year, please do visit their web page.

Led by Sam Grierson (EPQ) and supported through funding from both WIHEA and the Inclusive Education Programme, over the last two years, key members of WIHEA’s Inclusive STEM Assessments Learning Circle (open subgroup) have been exploring inclusive assessment in STEM disciplines, with a view to identifying sector-wide evidence, issues, and effective practices. Read the final report and contribute your inclusive assessment practice to the Showcase.

This new centre aims to connect individuals from across the sector who have an interest in supporting Belonging in Higher Education. Find out more and express your interest - if you would like to help shape this new initiative.

Selected by the WIHEA Advisory Group during a competitive annual selection process consisting of application and nomination in July 2025, the new 25 staff and 9 student Fellows will join WIHEA’s collaborative community on 1 September.