Last week I was in Oxford for the HESCA conference. I have been a regular presenter at the Higher Education Smart Campus Association (HESCA) conference, and for the third year running I delivered a keynote presentation on collaboration.

I was talking once more about working together, but taking more of a reflective look on where we are as a sector. I was presenting a state of the nation look at collaboration and why the higher education sector is not doing more collaboration. In many ways the focus of my presentation was based on my blog post on building bridges.

In 2024 I delivered a session on the Intelligent Campus in Loughborough. Last year I was in Cambridge for HESCA 25 and I was talking about the Jisc report, collaboration for a sustainable future.

The presentation went down well, and as well as a range of questions, my talk was referenced by other speakers during the rest of the conference.

There were a range of presentations at the event, some from vendors, and a fair few from the sector. Actually this year a considerable number of the speakers were from universities. It got me thinking that many of the talks would be of interest to many in the sector, and due to the number of sponsors the event is free to those from colleges and universities. 

There isn’t really another event like this, the AUDE conference does cover some of the topics, likewise Jisc events cover the technology side of things. The smart campus and intelligent campus space which spreads over estates and IT is often missed, but this is an ideal event for presentations and discussion about that landscape. So, something to think about for HESCA 27 next year.