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ECE2024

2024 Conference Report

June 11-15, 2024 | SOAS & University College London, UK

As part of our European summer conference series, IAFOR was in London this past July to host The 12th European Conference on Education (ECE2024), The 12th European Conference on Language Learning (ECLL2024), The 12th European Conference on Arts & Humanities (ECAH2024), and The 4th European Conference on Aging and Gerontology (EGen2024). Featuring an open and interdisciplinary two days of plenary sessions, 672 delegates from 84 countries joined this intellectual exchange, held at University College London (UCL), the University of Sussex, and SOAS University of London, and in partnership with UCL, Birkbeck, University of London; the European Center for Peace and Development (ECPD) of the United Nations University for Peace (UPEACE), and the IAFOR Research Center at Osaka University.

At this conference, the IAFOR International Academic Board met to ratify themes to drive the programme, announcing four key themes slated to shape our conferences and steer academic discussions for the next five years (2025-2029). The selected themes are Technology and Artificial Intelligence, Humanity and Human Intelligence, Global Citizenship, and Education for Peace and Leadership. These themes can be seen as standalone concepts, but they are also in interdisciplinary communication with each other, as the London conference has demonstrated. With the interdisciplinary approach of the plenary sessions, the keynote speakers’ and panellists’ presentations formed a narrative of how technological advancement, education, and institutions influence power dynamics, which in turn defines what it means to be human.

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Conference Report
Conference Proceedings
Virtual Presentations

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Speakers

  • Grant Black
    Grant Black
    Chuo University, Japan
  • Anne Boddington
    Anne Boddington
    Middlesex University, United Kingdom
  • Praminda Caleb-Solly
    Praminda Caleb-Solly
    University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
  • Evangelia Chrysikou
    Evangelia Chrysikou
    University College London, UK
  • Alfonso J. García-Osuna
    Alfonso J. García-Osuna
    Hofstra University, United States
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Brendan Howe
    Brendan Howe
    Ewha Womans University, South Korea
  • David Mallows
    David Mallows
    UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom
  • Ljiljana Marković
    Ljiljana Marković
    European Centre for Peace and Development (ECPD), United Nations’ University for Peace
  • James W. McNally
    James W. McNally
    University of Michigan & NACDA Program on Aging, United States
  • Cian O’Donovan
    Cian O’Donovan
    University College London (UCL), United Kingdom
  • Ana Pellicer-Sánchez
    Ana Pellicer-Sánchez
    UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom
  • Neelam Raina
    Neelam Raina
    Middlesex University, United Kingdom
  • Marcelo Staricoff
    Marcelo Staricoff
    University of Sussex, United Kingdom

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Programme

  • Providing Access to Higher Education for Refugees: Challenges and Benchmarks
    Providing Access to Higher Education for Refugees: Challenges and Benchmarks
    Keynote Presentation: Brendan Howe
  • The Joy of Not Knowing and Why It’s So Brilliant to Not Know!
    The Joy of Not Knowing and Why It’s So Brilliant to Not Know!
    Keynote Presentation: Marcelo Staricoff
  • Educating for Peace: Conflicting Narratives, Migration, Immigration and Global Citizenship
    Educating for Peace: Conflicting Narratives, Migration, Immigration and Global Citizenship
    Plenary Panel Discussion: Donald E. Hall, Brendan Howe, Ljiljana Marković, Anne Boddington
  • Helping Us to Help Ourselves – How Assistive Robots and AI Can Change the Dynamics of Supporting Healthy Ageing and Social Care
    Helping Us to Help Ourselves – How Assistive Robots and AI Can Change the Dynamics of Supporting Healthy Ageing and Social Care
    Keynote Presentation: Praminda Caleb-Solly
  • The Examination of Eye Movements in Language Learning Research: A Focus on Vocabulary
    The Examination of Eye Movements in Language Learning Research: A Focus on Vocabulary
    Keynote Presentation: Ana Pellicer-Sánchez
  • How to Destroy a University
    How to Destroy a University
    Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall
  • Humanities at the Helm: Mobilising Scholars to Confront the Planetary Climate Crisis
    Humanities at the Helm: Mobilising Scholars to Confront the Planetary Climate Crisis
    Keynote Presentation: Alfonso J. García-Osuna
  • Invisiblised and Erased Narratives – Essential Views from the Margins
    Invisiblised and Erased Narratives – Essential Views from the Margins
    Keynote Presentation: Neelam Raina
  • Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Democracy
    Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Democracy
    Keynote Presentation: Cian O’Donovan
  • AI and Education
    AI and Education
    Keynote Presentation: David Mallows
  • An Introduction to the IAFOR Undergraduate Research Symposium (IURS)
    An Introduction to the IAFOR Undergraduate Research Symposium (IURS)
    Special Seminar Session: Grant Black, James W. McNally

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Conference Committees

Global Programme Committee

Dr Joseph Haldane, IAFOR and Osaka University, Japan, & University College London, United Kingdom
Professor Jun Arima, President, IAFOR & University of Tokyo, Japan
Professor Anne Boddington, Executive Vice-President and Provost, IAFOR & Middlesex University, United Kingdom
Professor Barbara Lockee, Virginia Tech, United States
Professor Donald E. Hall, Binghamton University, United States
Dr James W. McNally, University of Michigan, United States & NACDA Program on Aging
Dr Grant Black, Chuo University, Japan
Professor Dexter Da Silva, Keisen University, Japan
Professor Baden Offord, Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia & Cultural Studies Association of Australasia
Professor Frank S. Ravitch, Michigan State University College of Law, United States
Professor William Baber, Kyoto University, Japan

Members of the IAFOR Board of Directors and The Academic Governing Board are standing members of the Global Programme Committee.

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Conference Programme Committee

Professor Anne Boddington, Executive Vice-President and Provost, IAFOR & Middlesex University, United Kingdom
Dr Evangelia Chrysikou, Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, University College London, United Kingdom
Dr Mehmet Demir, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele, Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom
Dr Joseph Haldane, IAFOR and Osaka University, Japan, & University College London, United Kingdom (Conference Co-chair)
Professor Donald E. Hall, Binghamton University, United States
Dr Jacqueline Lottin, Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates
Dr David Mallows, University College London Institute of Education, United Kingdom
Professor Andrea Révész, University College London Institute of Education, United Kingdom
Dr Ian Scott, University College London, United Kingdom
Dr Marcelo Staricoff, University of Sussex, United Kingdom

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Conference Review Committee

Dr Akeem Adekunle, University of Lagos, Nigeria
Dr Dina Adinda, Paris Nanterre University, France
Dr Samra Afzal, National University of Modern Languages, Pakistan
Dr Precious Akintoye, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria
Professor Adelina Asmawi, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia
Dr Kathleen Ahm Chim, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Hong Kong
Dr Hazel Diaz, Central Luzon State University, Philippines
Dr Nancy Ann P. Gonzales, Ifugao State University, Philippines
Dr Reinette Gouws-Meyer, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa
Dr Doaa Hamam, Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates
Dr Wendy Hiew, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia
Dr Webster Joseph, Independent Scholar, Trinidad and Tobago
Dr Aderinsola Kayode, Durban University of Technology, South Africa
Dr Motshidisi Lekhu, Central University of Technology, Free State, South Africa
Dr Benjamin Leung, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
Dr Hsuehi Lo, St. Cloud State University, United States
Dr Stefania Macaluso, Teachers College Columbia University, United States
Dr Jeng Jeng Mandolado-Bolintao, Ifugao State University, Philippines
Dr Blenn Nimer, Notre Dame of Kidapawan College, Philippines
Dr Catherine Phillips, Lakehead University, Canada
Dr Dilnoza Ruzmatova, Uzbekistan State University of World Languages, Uzbekistan
Professor Elias Said-Hung, Universidad Internacional de la Rioja, Spain
Dr Can Sakar, Gendarmerie and Coast Guard Academy, Turkey
Dr Raona Williams, Ministry of Education, United Arab Emirates
Professor Mohamed A. Zaki Ewiss, Cairo University, Egypt

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IAFOR Research Centre (IRC) – “Innovation and Value Initiative”

The IAFOR Research Centre (IRC) is housed within Osaka University’s School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), and in June 2018 the IRC began an ambitious new “Innovation and Value Initiative”. Officially launched at the United Nations in a special UN-IAFOR Collaborative Session, the initiative seeks to bring together the best in interdisciplinary research around the concept of value, on how value can be recognised, and measured, and how this can help us address issues and solve problems, from the local to the global.

Learn more about the Innovation and Value Initiative

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Grant Black
Chuo University, Japan

Biography

Professor Grant Black is a professor in the Faculty of Commerce at Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan, where he has taught Global Skills and Global Issues since 2013. Grant is engaged in diverse roles as a global manager, systems builder, executive leader and university professor. His research and teaching areas include global management skills, intercultural intelligence (CQ) and organisational management. He also has taught Japanese Management Theory at J. F. Oberlin University (Japan), and a continuing education course in the Foundations of Japanese Zen Buddhism at Temple University Japan. Previously, he was Chair of the English Section at the Center for Education of Global Communication at the University of Tsukuba where he served in a six-year post in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. He holds a BA Highest Honors in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara; an MA in Japanese Buddhist Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles; and a Doctor of Social Science (DSocSci) from the Department of Management in the School of Business at the University of Leicester. Dr Black is a Chartered Manager (CMgr), the highest status that can be achieved in the management profession in the UK. In 2018, he was elected a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). Grant is President of Black Inc. Consulting (Japan), a Tokyo-based firm specialising in international and intercultural project management, communication projects, and executive leadership and training. He is the director of the Nippon Academic Management Institute (NAMI) and the author of Education Reform Policy at a Japanese Super Global University: Policy Translation, Migration and Mutation (Routledge, 2022). He serves as a Vice-President for the International Academic Forum (IAFOR).

Special Seminar Session (2024) | An Introduction to the IAFOR Undergraduate Research Symposium (IURS)
Featured Interview (2021) | Undergraduate Research: Nurturing the Next Generation
Anne Boddington
Middlesex University, United Kingdom

Biography

Professor Anne Boddington is Executive Vice-President and Provost of IAFOR, and oversees the academic programs, research and policies of the forum.

Anne Boddington is Professor Emerita of Design Innovation and has held executive and senior leadership roles in Higher Education including as Dean of Arts & Humanities at the University of Brighton, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business & Innovation at Kingston and Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at Middlesex University.

In 2022 she concluded chairing the Sub Panel (32) for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory as part of the Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) and has extensive experience in the governance and conduct of peer review, research evaluation and assessment in REF2014 (Sub Panel Deputy Chair and Equality Diversity Advisory Panel [EDAP]) and RAE2008. A former member of AHRC’s Advisory Board, she is the current Chair of the Advisory Board for the UKRI’s National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research (NICER) programme (£30M), Deputy Chair and a Trustee of the Design Council, the government’s strategic advisor for design, and a member of both the InnoHK Scientific Committee (Hong Kong) and the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ).

Since the 1990’s Anne has worked across the UK and internationally with a wide range of quality assurance, professional, statutory, and regulatory bodies in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Hong Kong, and India.

As an independent consultant she now works as a strategic advisor and mentor and is committed to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in practice, developing effective governance, supporting career development, reducing bureaucracy, and improving organisational design, integrity, and productivity in the changing workplace.

Previous Presentations

Plenary Panel (2020) | Embracing Difference? Adaptive Lifelong Learning
Plenary Panel I (2017) | Think Like a System, Act Like an Entrepreneur
Praminda Caleb-Solly
University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Biography

Praminda Caleb-Solly is Professor of Embodied Intelligence at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, where she leads the Cyber-physical Health and Assistive Robotics Technologies research group. She holds degrees in Electronic Systems Engineering, Biomedical Instrumentation Engineering, and a PhD in Interactive Evolutionary Computation. From 2014 to 2018, she was the Head of Electronics and Computer Systems at Designability, an assistive technology SME. In 2020, she co-founded Robotics for Good CIC, a start-up to enable deployment of leading-edge intelligent robotics and smart technology solutions that seek to empower people in their everyday lives.

Professor Caleb-Solly’s academic publications cover machine learning and human-robot interaction. She also co-authored the UK-Robotics and Autonomous Systems White Paper on Robotics in Social Care: A Connected Care EcoSystem for Independent Living; and gave evidence to the UK House of Lords’ Science and Technology Committee inquiry into Ageing: Science, Technology and Healthy Living. She is currently leading an EPSRC Healthcare Technologies Network, Facilitating the Emergence of Healthcare Robots from Labs into Service, and also serves as a member of the British Standards Institute’s Technical Committees on Service Robot Safety and Ethics.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | Helping Us to Help Ourselves – How Assistive Robots and AI Can Change the Dynamics of Supporting Healthy Ageing and Social Care
Evangelia Chrysikou
University College London, UK

Biography

Dr Evangelia Chrysikou is a registered architect and senior research fellow at UCL. She owns the award-winning SynThesis Architects (London – Athens), that specializes in medical facilities. Her work received prestigious awards (Singapore 2009, Kuala Lumpur 2012, Brisbane 2013, Birmingham 2014, London 2014). Parallel activities include teaching at medical and architectural schools, research (UK, France, Belgium, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Greece and the Middle East) and advisory. She advised the Hellenic Secretary of Health and is the author of the new national guidelines for mental health facilities. Dr Chrysikou is the author of the book ‘Architecture for Psychiatric Environments and Therapeutic Spaces’, healthcare architecture editor, reviewer, active member of several professional and scientific associations and a TED-MED speaker. She is a Trustee, Member of the Board and Director of Research at DIMHN (UK) and Member of the Board at the Scholar’s Association Onassis Foundation.

Alfonso J. García-Osuna
Hofstra University, United States

Biography

Alfonso J. García-Osuna has taught at Hofstra University and at City University of NY-Kingsborough for over 35 years. He specialises in mediaeval and early modern literature, receiving his PhD (1989) from the Graduate School of the City University of New York. He has completed postdoctoral work at the University of Valladolid, Spain, has published six books, and is a frequent contributor to specialised journals. Additionally, Dr García-Osuna is the editor of the IAFOR Journal of Arts and Humanities.

Alfonso received primary and secondary education in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, the place where his family originated and where he grew up. An avid cyclist, he has completed the Road to Santiago, an 867-kilometre route through northern Spain, eight times.

Panel Presentation (2024) | TBA
Joseph Haldane
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s global business and academic operations.

Dr Haldane’s research and teaching is on history, politics, international affairs and international education, as well as governance and decision making, and he is a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance. Since 2015 he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, where he teaches on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and, since 2017, Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary think tank situated within the University.

In 2020 Dr Haldane was appointed Honorary Professor of UCL (University College London), through the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction. He holds Visiting Professorships in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade, and at the Doshisha Business School in Kyoto, where he teaches Ethics and Governance on the MBA, and is a member of the Value Research Center. He is also a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa.

Professor Haldane has given invited lectures and presentations to universities and conferences globally, including at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and advised universities, NGOs and governments on issues relating to international education policy, public-private partnerships, and multi-stakeholder forums. He was the project lead on the 2019 Kansai Resilience Forum, held by the Japanese Government through the Prime Minister’s and Cabinet Office, and oversaw the 2021 Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned study on Infectious Diseases on Cruise Ships.

Dr Haldane has a PhD from the University of London in 19th-century French Studies, and has had full-time faculty positions at the Université Paris-Est Créteil, Sciences Po Paris, and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas, and the schools of Journalism at both Sciences Po Paris, and Moscow State University.

From 2012-2014, Dr Haldane served as Treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (Chubu), and since 2015 has been a Trustee of HOPE International Development Agency (Japan). He was elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012 and the Royal Society of Arts in 2015. He lives in Japan and holds a black belt in Judo.

Previous Presentations

Featured Interview (2021) | A Life in Language: Lessons in Language and Language Learning
Panel Presentation (2020) | Embracing Difference? Adaptive Lifelong Learning
Panel Presentation (2020) | That's NOT Online Learning!: The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning
Brendan Howe
Ewha Womans University, South Korea

Biography

Brendan Howe is Dean and Professor of the Graduate School of International Studies, Ewha Womans University, South Korea, where he has also served two terms as Associate Dean and Department Chair. He is also currently the President of the Asian Political and International Studies Association, and an Honorary Ambassador of Public Diplomacy and advisor for the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has held visiting professorships and research fellowships at the East-West Center (where he is currently enjoying a second term as a POSCO Visiting Research Fellow), the Freie Universität Berlin, De La Salle University, the University of Sydney, Korea National Defence University, Georgetown University, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, and Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Educated at the University of Oxford, the University of Kent at Canterbury, Trinity College Dublin, and Georgetown University, his ongoing research agendas focus on traditional and non-traditional security in East Asia, human security, middle powers, public diplomacy, post-crisis development, comprehensive peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He has authored, co-authored, or edited around 100 related publications including Society and Democracy in South Korea and Indonesia (Palgrave, 2022), The Niche Diplomacy of Asian Middle Powers (Lexington Books, 2021), UN Governance: Peace and Human Security in Cambodia and Timor-Leste (Springer, 2020), Regional Cooperation for Peace and Development (Routledge, 2018), National Security, State Centricity, and Governance in East Asia (Springer, 2017), Peacekeeping and the Asia-Pacific (Brill, 2016), Democratic Governance in East Asia (Springer, 2015), Post-Conflict Development in East Asia (Ashgate, 2014), and The Protection and Promotion of Human Security in East Asia (Palgrave, 2013).

Panel Presentation (2024) | TBA
David Mallows
UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom

Biography

Dr David Mallows is an Associate Professor at the UCL Institute of Education in the United Kingdom, where he also directs the IOE Academic Writing Centre. He has over 35 years of experience in adult education as a teacher, trainer, and researcher. His past roles include training future ESOL teachers and managing CELTA and other initial and continuing training programs.

Dr Mallows also held the position of Director of Research at the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy (NRDC), directing a diverse range of research projects on adult literacy, language, and numeracy. He currently collaborates with colleagues in Spain, Brazil, and Portugal on adult education research.

In addition to his research activities, Dr Mallows currently contributes to the UCL Institute of Education's MA TESOL program, leading the English Language Teaching Classroom Practice module. He also supervises PhD students in the fields of adult education and academic writing.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | AI and Education
Ljiljana Marković
European Centre for Peace and Development (ECPD), United Nations’ University for Peace

Biography

Ljiljana Marković is a Professor of Japanese Studies in the European Centre for Peace and Development (ECPD) of the United Nations University for Peace, and Special Advisor to the Executive Director and ECPD Academic Director. She is also a Visiting Professor at Toho University and Osaka University, Japan, and Gabriele d'Annunzio University, Italy.

Professor Marković is the author of a large number of publications in the fields of Japanese Studies and Economics. She completed her bachelor’s and master's degrees at Cambridge University, United Kingdom, before pursuing her doctorate at Chuo University, Japan. For many years, she was a Professor at the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, with terms as Dean (2016-2020) and Vice Dean of Financial Affairs (2008-2016). She has served as the Chairperson of the International Silk Road Academic Studies Symposium since 2017.

Professor Marković received the Gaimu Daijin Sho Award from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan in 2010. In the following year, she received the Dositej Obradovic Award for Pedagogical Achievement. Professor Marković recent accolades include the Medal of Merit by the President of Serbia in 2020, the Isidora Sekulic Medal for Academic Achievement in 2021, and the Order of the Rising Sun (Gold Rays with Rosette) in 2022, an Imperial Decoration awarded by the Government of Japan for her "outstanding contribution to establishing and improving friendly relations with Japan”.

Panel Presentation (2024) | TBA
James W. McNally
University of Michigan & NACDA Program on Aging, United States

Biography

Dr James W. McNally is the director of the NACDA Program on Aging, a research program funded by the US National Institutes of Health for almost 50 years. During his career, Dr McNally has routinely written multi-million dollar research applications. Consistently funded by agencies, including NIH, NSF, the MacArthur Foundation, and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), he mentors graduate students and junior faculty in developing and maintaining a grant portfolio. Dr McNally is a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, a world-renowned organisation recognised for its leadership in survey development and independently funded research.

Special Seminar Session (2024) | An Introduction to the IAFOR Undergraduate Research Symposium (IURS)
Cian O’Donovan
University College London (UCL), United Kingdom

Biography

Dr Cian O'Donovan is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at UCL, United Kingdom. He studies the policies and processes of AI, robotics, and digital change using social science-led interdisciplinary approaches. Dr O’Donovan collaborates with people directly impacted by innovation, such as organisations, industry professionals, and service-users in care sectors. He is currently leading research that investigates what happens when innovation appears in sectors usually neglected by technology policy or Silicon Valley, asking questions such as who really benefits from innovation in said sectors; who is driving and steering change within them, and what are the impacts of innovative intervention for people and the planet? Dr O’Donovan has been steadfast in his work to ensure this research contributes to public engagement and movement building that can challenge powerful interests in order to achieve a more sustainable and fairer world. In 2014, he co-founded Uplift, Ireland's largest digital advocacy organisation for progressive social change.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Democracy
Ana Pellicer-Sánchez
UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom

Biography

Dr Ana Pellicer-Sánchez is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL at the Institute of Education in the Faculty of Education and Society University College London (UCL), United Kingdom. She is a member of the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics, where she conducts research on second language acquisition. Her research focuses on the teaching and learning of vocabulary in a second or foreign language. Recently, she has turned her focus on the use of eye-tracking technology to examine the cognitive processes involved in vocabulary learning when using different input conditions. Her work has appeared in international journals such as Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, Language Teaching, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and The Modern Language Journal, among others. She is co-author of Eye-tracking in Applied Linguistics Research (2018), and co-editor of Understanding formulaic language: A second language acquisition perspective (2019). She has recently co-edited a special issue on “Eye-tracking in Vocabulary Research in Research Methods in Applied Linguistics” (2024).

Dr Pellicer-Sánchez has participated in a number of national and international projects and committees, exploring the acquisition of English in different contexts. She has been the convenor of the Vocabulary Studies Special Interest Group of the British Association of Applied Linguistics (2018-2022) and the co-chair of the London Second Language Acquisition Research Forum (2019-2021). She is also a founding member of the British Council Eye-tracking Special Interest Group. Currently, she serves as associate editor of The Language Learning Journal, and as a member of the advisory board of various academic journals.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | The Examination of Eye Movements in Language Learning Research: A Focus on Vocabulary
Neelam Raina
Middlesex University, United Kingdom

Biography

Dr Neelam Raina is an Associate Professor of Design and Development at Middlesex University, London. Her research interests include conflict, security, peace building, material cultures, gender, and livelihood generation in fragile, conflict affected states. Raina’s work explores notions of healing, trauma, peace and reflection through the embodied practices of making, using material culture and tacit knowledge as the underpinning for approaching violence and peace building and for sustainable income generation. Raina is a post conflict reconstruction expert with a focus on South Asia where she has conducted extensive empirical research over the last two decades. The Women, Peace and Security agenda is key to Neelam’s and her research seeks to foreground voices of vulnerable and marginalised women.

Dr Raina has led several large-scale competitively funded research projects which examine material and social practices through which Muslim women in conflict areas reproduce themselves on a daily and generational basis, and through which the social relations and material bases of capitalism are renewed. Her work allows connections to be built between, creative home-based workers who are largely seen as peripheral, to development economics, and on the fringes of formal employment and contributors to GDP; to the larger notions of peace building, countering and preventing violent extremism, poverty spirals and conflict theory through culturally significant, socially relevant practices. She connects the British creative industry into solution-based impactful approaches to global challenges through research.

Raina is a strong advocate for Afghan women and is the Director of the Secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Afghan women and girls in UK parliament. Her research in Afghanistan is ongoing as she brings women’s tacit knowledge to commercially viable spaces from the confines of the home.

Raina has a PhD in Design and Development, and a Master’s in Design and Manufacture from De Montfort University, Leicester. From 2018-2021, she was the Challenge Leader for UKRI’s Conflict and Security Portfolio for the Global Challenges Research Fund. Raina has been a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security. She is the editor for the International Journal of Traditional Arts, and her new work Creative Economies of Culture in South Asia – Performers and Craftspeople was published in 2021.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | TBA

Previous Presentations

Featured Panel Presentation (2023) | Schrodinger’s Box of Interdisciplinarity – Inside and Outside the Box Thinking About Global Challenges
Marcelo Staricoff
University of Sussex, United Kingdom

Biography

Professor Marcelo Staricoff is a Lecturer in Education and will serve as joint Course Leader of the Bachelor of Arts in Primary and Early Years Programme and Course Leader for the Master of Education Course, from September 2024 at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom. He is the author of The Joy of Not Knowing (Routledge, 2021), a publication on the Philosophy of Education Transforming Teaching, Thinking, Learning, and Leadership in Schools. A former scientist and primary school headteacher, Professor Staricoff has worked on behalf of UNICEF with policy makers, educators, and textbook publishers to implement a reformed national curriculum in Uzbekistan. He also works for the Coram Children’s Charity alongside implementing courses and advising several schools and educational organisations in the United Kingdom.

Professor Staricoff speaks regularly at national and international events on the principles that underpin The Joy of Not Knowing’s philosophy of education and school leadership. He is also the author of its predecessor, Start Thinking (Imaginative Minds, 2005) and has published widely in the fields of creative, critical, multilingual, multicultural, and philosophical thinking and learning in the classroom. A member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Education (APPG), a Trustee of the Laurel Trust, and Chair of the Michael Aldrich Foundation, Professor Staricoff’s work and his contributions to education have been widely recognised, being named as a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching in 2019 and through his assignment as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2023.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | The Joy of Not Knowing
Providing Access to Higher Education for Refugees: Challenges and Benchmarks
Keynote Presentation: Brendan Howe

The global humanitarian crisis of refugee and forced migration flows is among the most pressing challenges to domestic and international governance. Securing access to higher education is among the most intractable challenges faced by refugees. Yet, securing higher education rights for refugees is critical not only for refugees’ self-empowerment, but also for the peaceful development of communities. Despite this, barriers remain prevalent. This research focuses on four of the most positive national governance provisions in Canada, Norway, and Australia, and the existing policy for access to higher education for North Korean refugees in South Korea. It is notable that these four countries are identified as middle powers, and middle powers often provide the impetus for global governance reform as an aspect of their niche diplomacy. Indeed, global governance reform represents a ‘noble opportunity’ for a middle power not only to aid the most vulnerable individuals and groups, but also raise its own prestige and influence on the international stage by complying with the norms of the liberal international order. Hence, the position of these case studies represent one of the most promising avenues for overcoming governance challenges related to both the humanitarian crisis and the transition to peaceful cosmopolitan societies.

Read presenter's biography
The Joy of Not Knowing and Why It’s So Brilliant to Not Know!
Keynote Presentation: Marcelo Staricoff

Albert Einstein once said that as a teacher, he never taught his students; he just provided the conditions in which they could learn. In this practical and interactive session, we will argue that it is not enough to just create the conditions in which students are able to learn; we also need to create the conditions in which students are intrinsically motivated to want to learn. We will postulate that in order to create these conditions, we need to free students from the worry and anxiety that is usually associated with the process of learning, which inevitably places us in an emotionally uncomfortable position as we find ourselves in a state of not knowing, of being uncertain, and of finding things difficult. We will examine how, as educators, we can use the principles that underpin the Joy of Not Knowing (JONK) model of learning and philosophy of education to demonstrate how we can create learning environments where the students love not knowing and where the learning is co-constructed with the students. We will discuss how intrinsically motivated learners help to create classroom cultures where all students are keen to embrace the curriculum with enthusiasm and feel free to take risks with their creative, critical and philosophical thinking, seeking, rather than avoiding challenge and uncertainty, within a culture that provides them with all they require to be able to thrive socially, emotionally, culturally, and cognitively.

This session will also discuss how the art of teaching is so dependent on this ability to create the conditions that enable students to feel comfortable with being uncomfortable. We will explore the idea that these conditions must be established prior to the beginning of any formal learning and demonstrate how this is achieved by dedicating the first week of the academic year to a Learning to Learn Week. We will also argue and use examples to demonstrate that students’ learning is at its best when students don’t realise that they are learning (the concept of dis-metacognition), when students are encouraged to access their learning using all the richness of language and culture that they bring with them (the concept of multilingual thinking in multicultural classrooms), where the learning is presented through an intellectually playful lens (the concept of the philosophical learning objective as part of classrooms that function as values and children’s rights-led, democratic, dialogic-rich communities of inquiry), where learners all feel equally valued and are able to develop a deep and lifelong love of learning (the concept of personalised models of learning and the lifelong learning dispositions), and where the purpose of education is at the heart of the teaching and learning process.

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Educating for Peace: Conflicting Narratives, Migration, Immigration and Global Citizenship
Plenary Panel Discussion: Donald E. Hall, Brendan Howe, Ljiljana Marković, Anne Boddington

According to Plato, “those who tell and claim the stories, control the world”, and the stories we are told and tell are the flesh on the bones of power. The question is, who tells these stories today?

Today, global conflicts, resource disputes, and cultural, ethnic, or religious tensions often result in catastrophic consequences for the marginalised ‘other’, depending on who is telling the story. Migration, particularly in Europe but equally in the global south and north, exemplifies this, with 120 million displaced people losing homes and educational opportunities. In the United Kingdom, the sixth-largest economy in the world, renowned for its prestigious education system, two narratives are increasingly conflated: one of immigrants, refugees, and illegal migration with that of the positive cultural and financial contributions of international students.

Activism on campuses has always been a driving force for political change and, thus, encouraged as a form of expression for the marginalised and the stories they have to tell. However, rising global campus protests, like those concerning Ukraine and Gaza, raise concerns about extreme activism, which can harm social cohesion, but also the same international students who contribute significantly to the UK.

Higher education and university campuses have traditionally been the spaces provided for healthy intercultural dialogue and expression of ‘otherness’ while protecting the marginalised. It is arguably a key responsibility of higher education to promote debate on contested narratives, fostering justice, equity, and humanity to maintain an uneasy but essential peace.

In this context and through the lens of IAFOR’s international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary mission, this panel presentation will discuss conflicting narratives within migration and the role global citizenship and peace education play in navigating through these issues.

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Helping Us to Help Ourselves – How Assistive Robots and AI Can Change the Dynamics of Supporting Healthy Ageing and Social Care
Keynote Presentation: Praminda Caleb-Solly

Assistive robots and AI offer the potential to transform people's ability to manage their own health, particularly those with the greatest need and lack of adequate support.

This presentation introduces Professor Caleb-Solly’s ongoing exploration of how connecting robots with different types of sensors can provide real-time information to not only support self-management, but also facilitate timely preventative interventions. These technologies are disruptive and will lead to new models of care. To ensure that assistive robots are functionally competent, safe, and robust enough to be deployed at scale, a co-design approach was adopted in this research, including the use of a participatory approach to explore the ethical, legal, social, and organisational aspects and ensure that the use of assistive robots is indeed effective and empathetic. Recent advances in the field of assistive robotics and AI will be discussed alongside the challenges and approaches for designing assistive robots that add value to our lives. An overview of research findings from the EPSRC Healthcare Technologies Network+ project Emergence will also be introduced, an effort to create a sustainable healthcare robotics eco-system which connects researchers, industry, and healthcare providers, in order to build the infrastructure and systems to drive healthcare robotics research and development to support people living with frailty.

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The Examination of Eye Movements in Language Learning Research: A Focus on Vocabulary
Keynote Presentation: Ana Pellicer-Sánchez

Vocabulary is one of the key components of language proficiency and is crucial for successful communication in a second language. Learners need to acquire large vocabulary sizes in order to understand a range of written and spoken texts, as well as to communicate with ease with others in the target language. Thus, a main concern of language researchers and practitioners has been to find effective approaches to support learners in acquiring the huge vocabulary learning targets. Vocabulary gains in research studies have traditionally been measured using offline tests, e.g., post-treatment vocabulary tests. However, in the last decade, we have witnessed an unprecedented increase in the number of vocabulary studies using eye-tracking, specifically to explore learners’ online processing of new words and their relationship with lexical gains. Until now, eye-tracking and its techniques have been predominantly used in psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology as a measure of cognitive effort and attention allocation. Second language acquisition research has begun to incorporate the utilisation of eye-tracking as a key tool for language acquisition studies.

The aim of this presentation is to provide an overview of what eye-tracking has shown so far in its early stages as a tool to study second language vocabulary learning. The presentation will first provide an introduction to the eye-tracking technique, showing its main advantages and affordances for the study of vocabulary learning. It will then illustrate the use of eye-tracking in vocabulary research, through the presentation of examples from recent studies on learning from reading and subtitled viewing. Directions for future research will be identified as well during the talk.

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How to Destroy a University
Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall

Universities across the globe are under attack, and threats are coming from many directions. Some of us find ourselves at ground zero in the culture wars: in the United States, for example, college campuses have become battlegrounds over questions of social justice, fact-based understandings of history, and the roots of inequality. American universities have seen intense verbal and even physical clashes arising from differences in opinion over the causes of and solutions to ongoing conflict in the Middle East, as well as proxy battles over the role of diversity offices and initiatives attempting to address systemic racism.

However, some existential threats come not from external cultural forces, but instead from disastrous internal leadership decisions and governmental policies.

In this call to action, I want to examine the tragic situation that one of my former employers—West Virginia University—finds itself in. A noxious combination of financial mismanagement, ignorance of enrollment trends, and wholesale state divestment from higher education has led to a gutting of key liberal arts programs, the termination of many tenured faculty, and deep cost-cutting that signals an impending death spiral of diminishing worth. We who are on the frontlines must find ways to challenge those who, through willful actions or ignorance, threaten the very existence of universities as we know them. This is not a call to martyrdom, but it is a call to action.

In this address, which will reference (among others) works by Michel de Certeau and Michel Foucault, both of whom were embroiled in the radical politics that shook late 1960s French higher education, I will argue for a multivalent tacticality that is at once radical in intent but also self-protective in nature. I ask conference members to take the work of IAFOR—its advocacy for international/intercultural/interdisciplinary understanding—back to their home campuses. The empathy, self-awareness, and commitment to understanding that we learn to exercise at IAFOR conferences represent critical skill sets we must draw on as we grapple with and respond to the growing volatility of our academic lives.

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Humanities at the Helm: Mobilising Scholars to Confront the Planetary Climate Crisis
Keynote Presentation: Alfonso J. García-Osuna

As the challenges of climate change mount, the role of humanists in addressing this existential threat has become increasingly important. While science undoubtedly plays the pivotal role in understanding and mitigating climate change, a review of the literature (Levine, 2023; Schaus, 2020) shows that humanists have generally been complacent spectators. There is scant analysis regarding the ways in which humanism can engage productively in the conversation on climate change and what it can bring to the table. This paper aims to change that. The research design employed involves a comprehensive examination of the possible intersections between humanism and climate action through a multidisciplinary lens. Drawing upon the work of noted scholars like Caroline Levine, Amitav Ghosh, and Marc Schaus, the paper synthesises diverse perspectives to elucidate the potential roles and responsibilities of humanists in combating global warming. Additionally, qualitative analysis of historical and contemporary examples of humanist texts is utilised to illustrate several practical applications of humanistic principles in addressing the climate crisis. This results in the itemisation of socio-cultural insights with which humanism can serve as a catalyst for transformative change in the fight against climate change. This paper concludes that exclusive to humanists are specific weapons with which to tackle the climate crisis, as well as an arsenal of unique perspectives that can be used to advocate for systemic change, promote sustainable lifestyles, and cultivate that ethical sense of environmental stewardship that science alone cannot bring to bear on the crisis.

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Invisiblised and Erased Narratives – Essential Views from the Margins
Keynote Presentation: Neelam Raina

Today's middle ground seems to be less ‘on point’ and an unfashionable place to be. The echo chamber effect of polarised thinking, in this bumper year of elections, gives us time to pause and reflect on where we have arrived after a worldwide pandemic. Since the global outbreak of COVID-19, our world is getting far more violent: conflict event rates have increased by over 40% from 2020 through 2023; with a stark increase of 12% in 2023 from 2022 rates (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), 2024). As a result, we now have scattered, fragmented spaces where an open constructive global dialogue could be undertaken: the middle ground is receding. These spaces are in short supply for young people across the world, who have constrained access to alternative narratives, histories, and writing. We risk the erasure of such spaces for our youth as each generation that passes takes with it memory, wisdom, and documentation of the middle ground. This talk discusses how this middle ground is key to addressing global challenges and explores how we could hold on to this shrinking space.

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Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Democracy
Keynote Presentation: Cian O’Donovan

‘It is time to hit pause on AI.’ In March 2023, hundreds of artificial intelligence experts endorsed that message in an open letter to leaders of the world's most powerful technology firms. Future risks are too great, they wrote, and the current pace of AI innovation is too rapid. Yet this letter gets at least one important detail wrong; if innovation is to increase public benefit and not just shareholder value, it's critical that society gets a say in the direction of innovation, not just its speed.

This talk will highlight multiple emerging directions of AI in health and care sectors and beyond. Appraising these directions is vital for democratic decision making about who should benefit from innovation such as AI, and who should pay. Moreover, focussing policy and public debate on how AI is being directed shows us that AI is not inevitable; its directions are influenced by a range of people, organisations, and interests across society.

The talk will combine perspectives on policy with research on public values in artificial intelligence and insights from care professionals as they try to get to grips with robotic, automation, and AI systems. It will show that regulation must be matched by capability building and collective action if AI is to empower those who work and depend on care services and not exclude them.

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AI and Education
Keynote Presentation: David Mallows

As higher education professionals, should we be worried about the lack of transparency, and the complex ethical issues that surround the development of AI and its application in higher learning institutions? This talk will discuss AI and education, specifically higher education, with special consideration in regards to the impact that AI might have, or is already having, on teaching and scholarship in our universities. The concept of AI literacy, currently being tentatively defined in scholarship, can largely be defined as a development of critical literacy, and should be highlighted for students as part of modern study within university curricula. This talk will argue that in order to counter the negative aspects of AI, educators and learners alike should be involved in the development of AI for education, not just subject to it. We should seek to influence the technology rather than just work reactively to adapt it (or more likely to adapt to it).

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An Introduction to the IAFOR Undergraduate Research Symposium (IURS)
Special Seminar Session: Grant Black, James W. McNally

First held in Kobe, Japan, in 2015 as the Asian Undergraduate Research Symposium (AURS), the IAFOR Undergraduate Research Symposium (IURS) gives undergraduate students the opportunity to present their original research as a poster presentation for an academic audience. IURS is a two-day symposium held in conjunction with select IAFOR conferences worldwide. Through participation in IURS, students join other engaged undergraduate students from across the globe in an international and interdisciplinary course that aims to enhance their oral communication skills through a series of challenging and exciting online seminars and activities, culminating in an in-person presentation at the conference. Participants learn from peer review, feedback, and advice and in turn, develop their presentation skills, broaden their professional network, and forge new friendships with other up-and-coming academics. Join this special information session to find out about IURS and how your students can get involved in future events.

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