NETworking & Innovation in Healthcare Education Conference

While the NET Conference name remains as a legacy, and many still associate NET with nurse education, the conference now attracts a broad range of allied healthcare professionals. As such, the conference name has been revised to include the emphasis on the broader healthcare sector while emphasising the two most fundamental areas of the conference ethos – networking and innovation. Henceforth, the conference will be known as the NETworking & Innovation in Healthcare Education Conference.

• The theme for the 2023 conference has been selected as Empowering a successful learning journey.
   
• The 2023 conference will be delivered as a full in-person, two-day, immersive experience. Every second year the conference will be delivered virtually using Advance HE’s virtual conference suite.

While the conference’s model of longer theme sessions allows themes to be discussed in great depth, delegate feedback highlighted the need for variety and flexibility within the programme, and a greater distinction between the types of session on offer.

Enabling success through recruitment and admissions, learning design and delivery 

This theme will consider how, as educators, we facilitate the journey from the very first engagement with prospective learners. How do we ensure that our recruitment, enrolment and induction processes, and the transition onto a programme of learning, are designed to maximise retention and success for all? Abstracts submitted under this theme could also address enhancements made to the design and delivery of the curriculum, including innovative approaches to teaching and learning in diverse healthcare settings, and how these have impacted on the journey to success.

Enabling success through belonging and learner engagement  

This theme will focus on how we build and embed a genuine sense of belonging and identity throughout the journey of every learner. This is crucial not just in the classroom or online, but also while on placements and learning in the workplace. Learner engagement is so much more than just turning up and being present. We must place learners at the centre of our thinking and plans, in order to ensure an excellent experience throughout their learning journey.

Enabling success through learner support  

This theme will consider how we ensure the journey to learner success continues throughout the period of study, considering the support provided within and outside of the classroom and/or the online environment.

Innovating to develop the future healthcare workforce  

This theme will consider how we prepare pre-registration students for the world of work and ensure they understand the routes to employment available to them, and how we encourage part-time students already in employment to consider their career progression and potential development opportunities.

Panel session Student learner support and belonging

Originally launched as an annual, UK conference for nursing and midwifery educators in 1990, NET has become a well-established, annual event with increasing numbers of global delegates. Over the decades we’ve continued to innovate, welcoming ever-rising numbers of students as presenters and participants, including keynote presentations. We have also seen a steady growth in the number of delegates from a range of healthcare professions, including counselling, dentistry, dietetics, general practice medicine, occupational therapy, oncology, paramedic medicine, pharmacy, physiotherapy, psychology, radiography, radiology, speech and language therapy, and veterinary surgery. These developments continue to enrich conference discussions and debates, and stimulate the cross-fertilisation of ideas, adding invaluable insights, understanding, and learning from each other.

Networking is at the heart of every conference, which provides a supportive, friendly, and engaging environment for all delegates, particularly for new presenters, to ensure that this important rite of passage is a positive and rewarding experience. In the words of recent delegates, NET is:

‘such an inclusive, collegial and welcoming conference’;

‘a vibrant event with a good buzz about it’

 ‘as a new presenter and first-time delegate, I felt supported and inspired’;

‘there was an air of positivity and joy’.