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Leading together: shaping the future of education at Digifest 2026

Digifest offers the space for leaders to connect, collaborate and explore practical strategies for overcoming shared challenges and ensuring success.

Two delegates chatting at a Jisc event.

Financial sustainability, AI and cyber security are no longer future risks; they are shaping decisions right now. Evidence from our 2025 leadership survey, with nearly 600 responses from across further and higher education, shows how sharply these pressures are being felt across the sector.

Digifest 2026 is a chance for decision-makers to step back from day-to-day pressures, connect with peers and explore practical responses to these shared challenges.

Digifest as a shared leadership space

The 2026 programme has been shaped around the priorities identified through our ongoing work with the sector. Over two days, the event brings together senior executives, digital specialists, teaching staff and sector partners to focus on the issues shaping leadership right now.

Day one includes dedicated sessions for senior executives, a space for conversation, to share experiences, test ideas and leave with clearer and more actionable strategies for leading through complexity. Sessions have been designed to offer support and help you to:

  • Boost financial resilience: discover how technology can drive efficiencies and open new income streams through micro-credentials, transnational education and learning analytics
  • Lead with confidence on AI: gain clarity on responsible innovation, compliance, and building trust in an AI-driven world
  • Break down silos: connect with peers and build collaborative strategies to tackle shared challenges head-on
  • Empower your leadership: strengthen your own digital capability to lead transformation effectively

Purpose, trust and future voices

As AI and data‑driven approaches continue to evolve the sector, questions of purpose, accountability and trust are increasingly at the forefront of current conversations. This year’s event provides an opportunity to consider who is shaping these decisions, and how those choices reflect your organisation's values.

This year’s opening keynote embodies that challenge. Melati Wijsen, founder of Bye Bye Plastic Bags and YOUTHTOPIA, brings a powerful lens shaped by youth‑led action and community‑driven change, reminding us of the impact that shared responsibility and grassroots leadership can have.

The message is clear - engaging with students and emerging voices is fast becoming central to stronger decision‑making, greater trust and more sustainable organisational change.

Leading together

What we see from working with members from across the sector, is that challenges are rarely isolated to just one organisation, to the extent that most are, in fact, widespread. Progress depends on collaboration, openness and learning from others working through similar issues. Across two days in-person and online, we will bring delegates together to share experiences, challenge assumptions, gain clarity and return more confident and better equipped to navigate complexity.

This year’s programme features a number of high-impact sessions specifically designed for senior leaders, including:

Empowered digital executives

Digital transformation is no longer an operational add‑on, it’s a strategic imperative that shapes institutional resilience and long‑term success. High-level executives set the tone, define the ambition, and lead the cultural shifts needed to make digital change real.

In this panel discussion, four higher education executives from across the UK will share how they are building digital capability within their institutions, and what this means for organisational strength and team performance.

You will gain insight into how they have evolved their own leadership practice, what it looks like in action and the tangible difference it is already making across their organisations - offering valuable inspiration for your own strategic journey.

What's digital transformation for?

In a volatile and fast‑shifting landscape, digital transformation can easily be dismissed as yet another initiative competing for attention or seen as a short‑lived experiment driven by early adopters. This session invites you to step back from the noise and re‑examine the strategic purpose of digital transformation in strengthening your organisation’s future civic engagement, sustainability and inclusivity.

Together you will explore how digital transformation can reshape long‑standing constraints, unlock new ways of operating, and enable your organisation to deliver on its mission with greater clarity and confidence.

We’ll be adding more sessions over the coming weeks designed to help address emerging sector priorities - keep an eye on the Digifest programme page for updates.

About the event

Digifest returns to the ICC Birmingham and online on 10-11 March 2026.