The Creative Education Conference

Welcome to the UCA Creative Education Conference  2025 at The University for the Creative Arts, Epsom on June 18th 2025, 10:00-17:00 BST. Contact us here 

Creative education is amid a major shift.

With global challenges intensifying and creative industries rapidly evolving, the call for fresh, forward-thinking teaching has never been more pressing. This year’s conference theme of Innovative Practices in Creative Education, focuses on how we can embed bold, responsive, and impactful approaches into creative education, shaping graduates who aren’t just skilled makers, but also critical thinkers, ethical innovators, and agents of change.

We’ll consider how emerging technologies, such as generative AI, can enrich creative work and how business and entrepreneurial thinking might complement arts curricula. This broad perspective challenges traditional models and invites us to reimagine what we teach, how we teach, and why it matters.

At the core of this year’s theme are authentic learning and practice-based research approaches that connect education with real-world contexts, encourage hands-on experimentation, and foster collaboration across disciplines. By placing these methods front and centre, we aim to explore how creative education can empower students to engage more deeply with their work and spark meaningful innovation. Alongside this, the conference continues to foreground our shared responsibility to shape a more sustainable future, asking how creative education can lead the way in developing greener, circular economies.

We invite provocations, case studies, and research that show how innovative approaches to creative education can drive cultural, environmental, and economic impact, ultimately preparing students to thrive and lead in our complex, interconnected world. By engaging in these forward thinking dialogues, we can shape a creative education future that responds to uncertainty and equips both ourselves and our graduates to adapt and lead with purpose in a rapidly changing world.

Keynote Speaker

We would like to welcome our keynote speaker this year, Professor Susan Orr.

Professor Susan Orr is the Pro Vice Chancellor Education and Equalities at De Montfort University (DMU). Prior to this she held leadership roles at York St John University, Sheffield Hallam University and University of the Arts London.

Susan currently leads Learning for Life pillar of DMU's Empowering University Strategy. She is the DMU executive lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, as well as Arts, Design, and Humanities.

Susan was a panel member in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2 Panel and chaired the Arts Subject Review TEF Pilot Panel. She was also on the recent TEF panel in 2023. Susan was invited to lead the Office for Students review of Blended Learning and has delivered a range of keynotes and inputs disseminating the report’s findings.

Susan is a Professor of Creative Practice Pedagogy and her research centres on studio-based pedagogy in art and design. With Alison Shreeve she co-authored the book ‘Art and Design Pedagogy in Higher Education: knowledge, values and ambiguity’.

In 2021 she was invited by the German Bauhaus Kooperation to consider the impact of Bauhaus arts education on its 100^th university. Details about Susan’s published outputs can be found on Google Scholar.

Susan is an Advance HE Principal Fellow, a National Teaching Fellow (awarded in 2010) and in 2020 led the academic enhancement team at University of the Arts London, winning an Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence.

She has been a trustee for the Yorkshire Museums Trust, a member of the Group for Learning in Art and Design Board (GLAD) and a member of Council for Higher Education in Art and Design (CHEAD). At University of the Arts London Susan was co-chair of the university’s LGBTQ+ Staff Network. Susan chaired the European League of Institute of Arts (ELIA) Teachers’ Academy from 2018-2023.

Over her career Susan has been invited to give keynotes and to support teaching, learning and curriculum development in universities and art schools in North America, Australia, Hong Kong, and more. She is a Visiting Professor at Bournemouth University in the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice. We are very excited to have the opportunity of Professor Orr joining us for our conference this year. 

Susan will be delivering a keynote speech titled 'Thinking creatively about creative higher education'

In this presentation Susan will explore ways that creative education curriculum and pedagogy might be designed to meet the needs of students and graduates.  She will look at the role of the studio and digital learning spaces to identify ways that inclusivity might be enacted in practice.  Susan will reflect on the different attributes that graduates will need to sustain them over the course of their lives.