About
Building on the hugely successful UCISA25, the conference will once again be focusing on inspiring and enabling outstanding leadership in IT for the UCISA26 Leadership Summit.
The HE and FE Sectors continue to operate in a challenging period of sustained change. As a result, the need to seek out best practice from both within and outside the sector – as well as the best products and services – has never been greater, to ensure our community has the agility and creativity needed to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
Jisc sessions - Thursday 19 March
Panel - Towards a New Era of Collaboration: the Common Student Data Model Initiative
The Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce, chaired by Sir Nigel Carrington, brought together a broad spectrum of viewpoints from across the sector, and:
- Identified the challenges facing the sector
- Catalysed a sense of collective effort and momentum behind sector led change, with keen focus on how universities can work together to solve some of the challenges ahead
- Supported a deeper partnership and quality of dialogue with government
More importantly, it set out clear actions for sector partners tasking UUK, Jisc and UCISA to deliver key outputs that would leverage sector buying power and support digital transformation.
UCISA and Jisc's work to develop a trusted, student centres data model for UK Higher Education is a critical project within the Transformation and Efficiency Programme. This initiative will establish a common national digital language for student records, enabling consistent data definitions and secure, real-time exchange across institutions and systems. This foundational work is critical to delivering government priorities including the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, modular provision and greater student mobility, as current policy ambitions are running ahead of the sector’s underlying digital infrastructure.
The approach is sector-owned and not-for-profit, building on the Higher Education Reference Model (HERM), supported by JISC and is informed by the Netherlands’ successful implementation of a national data model.
In this session you will hear from those leading this work for UCISA, Jisc and UUK, exploring their belief that by agreeing shared data standards at sector level, institutions will reduce duplication, lower integration costs, enable trusted digital credentials and create the conditions for greater collaboration and efficiency.
- Chaired by Deborah Green, CEO, UCISA
- Emma Woodcock, CIO, York St John University
- Liam Earney, MD - Higher education and research, Jisc
- Miriam Deakin, Director of Strategy, Insight and Member Engagement, UUK
AI Futures: Preparing for a Post-Web World
Artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape the foundations of our digital environment. For three decades, the web has been central to how we deliver services and information, but we are now entering a period of profound change. The direction of travel points towards a fundamental reconfiguration of the web as we know it, and the rise of a future where information and actions are mediated by AI rather than through a traditional web browser. This shift extends beyond how we search and access information. It is also going to change how we use applications, moving from tools we actively operate to systems that act on our behalf. For education leaders, this demands fresh thinking about infrastructure, integration, user experience, and governance. These are not abstract questions: they touch directly on student experience, institutional systems, cyber security, and how we invest in digital capability.
At the heart of this transformation is the emergence of agentic AI: autonomous, proactive systems that can coordinate tasks, connect across platforms, and shape outcomes. These capabilities herald a post-web future where AI mediates not only knowledge but also the daily operations of institutions. This session will explore how leaders can anticipate and prepare for these transformations, balancing innovation with responsibility to build resilient, future-ready organisations.
- Michael Webb, Director of AI, Jisc
Contact
For further information, please visit the UCISA event page.