14 April 2026 - UCISA26 Simon Henry Reflections
I moved to Higher Education from the private sector in May 2025 and my prior career experiences had been primarily in working B2B across the UK and EU. As I got to know colleagues from across the University I kept being recommended UCISA from technical team, University leadership as well as colleagues in Enterprise Architecture. I started exploring the public face of UCISA and the different areas that it crossed over with my role and signed up for various webinars and calls including the AGM. This was very helpful to familiarise myself with the networks that exist within HE and to be able to get in touch with peers who face similar challenges.
When bursary places became available for the Leadership conference I applied hoping for more of a broad understanding of how UCISA equips and supports colleagues in education. I was thrilled to have a place confirmed and started to look at the programme to see what areas would be particular relevant to my existing and future requirements. I was not disappointed!
The event was very professional in feel. I had timely and accurate information about practical areas such as travel and accommodation as well as signposts to things that may be of interest in the build-up to the event. My expectations of the event were both fully met and surpassed. The location of the conference was excellent in terms of space for main sessions as well as breakout sessions in different rooms. The exhibitor area on the lower ground was expansive and allowed for me to make a number of connections with vendors new and existing some of whom that I had not previously had exposure to.
The main things stood out in terms of what I took away from the event were the quality of some of the sessions where other leaders in technology were sharing what they had been able to deliver. Also, the broader discussions around leadership and strategy in Universities was fascinating to learn more about – it’s not something that I have had previous exposure to but has been helpful in getting to know the sector. Lastly, the chance to be with a number of colleagues exploring challenges relating to their own areas and the opportunity to have broad high-level conversations outside of the day-to-day challenges was incredibly useful. It was also existing to be able to celebrate the success of peers across the sector at the awards dinner – especially having heard some of their stories in sessions across the week.
Based on my experience to make the most of this it’s important to plan ahead – decide which sessions you want to attend, which suppliers are important to engage with and also (as one of the speakers said) to ask interesting questions to those suppliers. In my first year in HE it’s easy to become distracted from the more important strategic areas when dealing with more immediate requirements. UCISA Leadership conference was a breath of fresh air and a timely reminder to ensure we take time to prioritise longer term high impact goals.
