In late September, I had the joy to align my first visit to Manchester with attending the HE Connect conference. Even though the city was quite new to me, and I was quite excited to take a few walks to make the most of my free afternoon, I was even more excited to attend, present and discuss with fellow higher education digital leaders.

This conference has been established in the post-Covid era, when a clear gap in engagement between UK higher education in the area of digital was growing. Having attended the 2023 event, which took place in Liverpool, I already knew I was in for a treat. This time, it would be slightly different since I was invited to present on how to manage a University website in tricky times, host a digital sustainability round table and delivery a 5′ lightning talk on how we are managing our web estate registry. Reminder to challenge anyone thinking that conferences are quiet, laid back time.

I will be sharing my insights from these sessions in a separate blog post,  since what I was most expecting was to listen and learn from all the presenters, and engage in meaningful informal discussions about our successes and challenges. I wasn’t disappointed.

A clear focus on digital governance

Throughout the conference, there was a clear focus on the challenges of governing large, diverse, devolved digital environments and the approaches to address them. Two presentations I ‘ve found a lot of similarities with our work were:

• Joyce Peralta, Digital Communications Manager at McGill University, kicked off the conference with an amazing presentation on how digital governance and best practice are evolving, and now are even more important, incorporating guidelines for related to AI technologies. The key takeaway was the importance of the role of people in ensuring digital governance is a success. From fostering a culture of inclusion and prioritising psychological safety, to support diverse communities of practice and ensuring there is available training for all levels of expertise and seniority, having some of it as mandatory, it was obvious that they key to effective digital governance is the people in and around it.
• Kris Purdy, Head of Digital Experience Team at University of Glasgow, presented on his team’s approach to improve the maturity of digital governance and platforms across the organisation. Even though “continuing to do much of the same” is always the easy option, Kris  took the more difficult, but way more exciting and impactful, route to develop a long-term plan in various layers, aiming to reduce digital channels, manage them more effectively and support the University’s objectives reducing the “noise”. Having previously engaged with Kris about Glasgow’s launch of their new student hub and portal, it was amazing to know more about their strategic masterplan.

An informal, yer very supportive and helpful environment

Most digital professionals in the UK higher education are familiar with the open communication and collaboration that takes place. And this conference was no different. I really enjoyed all the informal discussions, on the back or before the presentations. It was very interesting hosting the round table about digital sustainability, where I had the opportunity to do a very quick introduction to all our efforts to monitor and reduce the carbon emissions of our web estate. I was very encouraged by the number of participants who chose to have this discussion, the amount and quality of questions and the overall interest on how our approaches in Edinburgh have helped reduce the carbon emissions from using digital platforms.

Furthermore, it was really interesting to have a discussion with Joyce Peralta from McGill University, Liz McCarthy from University of Oxford and Gavin Colborne from Little Forrest, on the ways to scan, audit and measure the health of our web estates. Spreadsheets were loaded, data was scanned and information was shared to help inform all of our approaches and improve them.

Finally, a small group of us took the opportunity for a nice refreshing morning run around central Manchester before our breakfast on day 2. I always find fascinating to run through the empty streets of a city that hasn’t woken up, just yet. I can say that Manchester has delivered, and I have become a real fan of its mix of industrial and modern architecture.

A conference that keeps on giving, and a nice final surprise announcement

During the days after the conference, I am glad to say that the sharing of information and insight didn’t stop then since there were follow ups between a number of us and continued discussions via emails and Teams calls.

HE Connect 25 – Conference program and slides per session, photo album and blog posts from attendees.

A very nice surprise was expecting everyone at the end of the conference, when it was announced that the 2026 event will take place in a very familiar, and beautiful, city: Edinburgh! Even though a lot of details need to be arranged and confirmed, I can’t wait to welcome colleagues from the UK, and beyond, for another round of very interesting discussions. Till October 2026!