Communications departments are increasingly at the centre of strategic decision making across Higher Education institutions. How do we, as expert communicators, engage with our university communities to help build stronger brands and enhance value to society? How do we not only support our colleagues, but actively influence culture change and shape the future direction of our universities?

By making connections, by innovating, by inspiring.

The EUPRIO Annual Conference 2019 is focus on these challenges and share expert knowledge of innovative solutions.

Be inspired!

We are delighted to welcome our Keynote and Endnote speakers:

Thomas Kolster is an international expert in sustainable communication and will open our conference with an inspiring focus on reputation management and building.

Christophe Ginisty is a digital strategist and reputation management specialist who will share his expertise on creating successful strategies that enhance online reputation.

The conference has two themes:

1. Reputation management and building

A university’s reputation is critical, now more than ever with social media providing instant feedback. Not only for league tables and student/staff recruitment, but when it comes to trust and transparency around social responsibility, ethics and community engagement.

Strategic planning and crisis management are critical, but we explore new approaches to protecting and building online reputation, how we can effectively use platforms such as LinkedIn, and the ethics around staff perceptions of what is appropriate for internal/external, personal/professional, public/private communication.

We also discuss establishing effective relationships between communications and HR to develop employer branding and recruitment, innovative approaches to celebrating success, how to manage expectations of international students, and how to handle internal and external relationships during times of crisis.

2. Internal communications

Strategic planning, informed managers and early collaboration with colleagues can effectively ensure that happy staff = happy students.

Our own staff and students can be our best brand champions, so we demonstrate how to gain buy-in from audiences such as researchers and students, how to effectively engage with our internal stakeholders through intranets, social media, blogging and apps, and the positive impacts on community engagement.

We explore the importance of building communities in your university and the positive effects on achieving culture change, and the role of the employer around improved staff induction, engagement, support and development.

Completing the cycle from student to alumni and back again can harness real-life experiences using an authentic voice, so we explore how best to achieve this and the benefits of considering staff/student concerns such as wellbeing from the very beginning.

Throughout all of these sessions, the integral role of social media and video content in current communications is supported with examples of best practice and innovation.