The March 2026 issue of the Praxis Pulse newsletter is now available. This edition highlights upcoming events, including the Praxis Open Seminar on From Anxiety to Agency: Unlocking AI’s Creative Potential in Higher Education and the 2026 Praxis Festival of Scholarship. It also features updates from Praxis-funded projects, scholarship hubs, and new initiatives across the WELS Scholarship and Innovation Centre.

Congratulations to Jane Cook, Christine Pleines & Qian Kan, and Olivia Kelly for achieving the three most-viewed projects on the Scholarship Exchange.

Join us for the 8th Praxis Festival of Scholarship and discover the inspiring pedagogic research and scholarship produced by WELS colleagues over the past year. From research-informed teaching and student experiences to AI-enabled practice and innovative nursing simulations, the programme showcases the breadth of our collective work.

At the Praxis Centre for Scholarship and Innovation, we know that the conversation around AI in Higher Education is often dominated by anxiety. On Wednesday 25th March 2026 we’re inviting you to help us flip that script.

We are thrilled to host our next Open Seminar: "From Anxiety to Agency: Unlocking AI’s Creative Potential in Higher Education." This online event is your chance to move beyond the "AI panic" and explore how these tools can actually enhance human critical thinking and original scholarship.

We’re excited to share Part 2 of a blog series from Praxis researchers Joanna Mirek-Tooth and Olwyn O’Malley, now live on SCiLAB’s site. This instalment — “Supporting success: Enhancing the Joint Degree student experience” — describes the new support initiatives developed at The Open University (OU) in response to student feedback on joint-degree study.

A new free OpenLearn course, Supporting University Students with a Mental Health Condition, has been created through a three-year Praxis project led by Professor Joan Simons. Developed in response to the rising number of students declaring mental health conditions, it offers practical strategies grounded in interviews and workshops with students and Associate Lecturers.

We’re pleased to share that Part 1 of a new blog series from Praxis researchers Joanna Mirek-Tooth and Olwyn O’Malley has been published on SCiLAB’s website. Their project investigates what it’s like to study on the Open University’s Joint Degree programme, drawing on student experiences to highlight opportunities, challenges and unique aspects of interdisciplinary online study.

The first instalment introduces the project and shares emerging reflections from students themselves.

We are pleased to share that our Praxis Immersive Technologies Hub leader, Lisa Bowers, contributed her expertise on the upcoming BBC programme Seeing into the Future.

The programme offers viewers a rare insight into emergent/nascent technology - but with a twist - in that most of the technology is not just for entertainment, or leisure it holds a purpose and aids everyday people by adding value to their lives and bypassing their ability needs. 

The Open University in the UK, Faculty Centre for Pedagogic Research, Scholarship and Innovation, is seeking to develop a new partnership with an international Higher Education Institute to co-host (online, occasionally face-to-face) seminars two or three times a year, around a shared theme.

The seminars usually follow a 20 / 20 / 20 format: 2 x 20 mins presentation by an academic from each HEI followed by 20 mins for discussion. We take the organisation of each event in turns.

Exciting news from one of our ECYS Praxis project teams, Poppy Gibson, Sagun Shrestha, and Helena Staszkiewicz's work on 

The OU / Gothenburg seminar series is now in its eighth year. We continue to explore through an international lens issues and interests that the International Higher Education Community share. Few of you will be surprised that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a recent focus.  

We’re thrilled to share that a paper co-authored by our Director of Praxis, Carol Azumah Dennis, has won the HERDSA Routledge Article of the Year Award 2024!