EDEN Digital Education Leadership Academy (DELA)
November 5 @ 08:00 – November 7 @ 17:00
Who should join?
- Leaders, middle managers and emerging leaders leading or supporting digital transformation in their institution
- Experienced senior leaders with strategic planning responsibilities for digital education
- Teams of leaders and emerging leaders from the same institution responsible for implementing a digital education strategy
What does it include?
- 3 days intensive days of strategic thinking workshops to help envision the future of digital learning
- Inspiring talks by renown educational leaders
- Real-life dilemmas, case examples and future scenarios of real institutions
- Active problem-solving to develop research informed responses to the digital challenges and opportunities confronting organisations
- A highly engaging social programme for networking and professional learning
- A lasting access to the presented training materials
- A small group of up to 30 participants for hands-on learning from the best trainers and each other
- The workshop includes onsite catered coffee breaks and 3 lunches as well as 1 dinner in the central Barcelona alongside with a thematic visit to one of the attractions of Barcelona
Challenge yourself and future-proof your institution by becoming a graduate of the EDEN Digital Education Leadership Academy!
What is the EDEN Digital Education Leadership Academy?
- A place to learn from others
- A place to experience different strategies for digital education leadership
- A place to tackle challenges and create solutions together
- A place for professional networking
- A place to envision the future of digital education
Why participate?
- To connect with other European colleagues
- To find effective ways of realising the potential of digital transformation
- To help develop new strategies which tackle the challenges of digitalization
- To refine your leadership toolbox and find solutions together
- To envision the future of digital education
What will you learn?
- How other higher education institutions are responding to their challenges of digital transformation
- How to undertake a horizon scan of future trends and the impact they may have on your organisation
- What factors need to be considered when developing a successful digital transformation strategy
- Effective strategies other educational leaders are using to harness the potential of digital education
- How to challenge yourself and future-proof your institution by becoming a graduate of the EDEN Digital Education Leadership Academy.
EDEN DELA Graduates 2023
EDEN DELA Graduates 2024
More information coming soon.
EDEN DELA 2025 Speakers
Susannah Quinsee
Ale Armellini
Tine Baelmans
Vice President For Digital and Student Experience
Dean of Digital and Distributed Learning
Vice Rector For Educational Policy
City University of London, UK
University of Portsmouth, UK
KU Leuven, Belgium
EDEN DELA 2025 sessions will also feature speakers, such as prof. Albert Sangrà (EDEN Vice President for Strategic Thinking and Networking; Director for the UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change), prof. Josep M. Duart (EDEN DLE Management Board member).
Albert Sangrà
Josep Maria Garrell
Josep M. Duart
EDEN Vice President for Strategic Thinking and Networking; Director for the UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change
President of the European University Association
EDEN DLE Management Board member
More Information about the Speakers
Susannah Quinsee
Susannah Quinsee is Vice-President (Digital and Student Experience) at City, University of London. As Vice-President, she is the strategic lead for digital transformation as well as leading institutional projects and strategy to support student experience. She is an EMCC accredited coach, a National Teaching Fellow, a SEDA Senior Fellow and AdvanceHE HEA Principal Fellow. In 2017, she was appointed as a Learning and Teaching Excellence Ambassador by Advance HE to promote educational development. She researches on university digital futures and playful practice and leadership and is a Lego Serious Play practitioner. Susannah attempts to blog on a regular basis (www.sqhq.co.uk), particularly if it is about Lego and rekindling her love of women’s poetry, which she studied for her PhD. Susannah has four children, including twins and is passionate about inclusivity and wellbeing in higher education. Susannah is continually reflecting on how to achieve a “happy” balance between her professional and personal activities.
Alejandro (Ale) Armellini
Alejandro (Ale) Armellini leads digital learning, learning innovation and pedagogic transformation, including on-campus and online provision, across all Faculties at the University of Portsmouth. He wrote and embedded the Digital Success Plan for Learning and Teaching in 2021, which became the centrepiece of the University’s new Education Strategy, co-developed by Ale in 2023. Before joining Portsmouth, Ale was Dean of Learning and Teaching at the University of Northampton, where he was the strategic lead for the redesign of all programmes for active blended learning (ABL). His work shaped Northampton’s flagship Waterside campus, which opened in 2018 – without lecture theatres, among other radical features. He publishes widely and is a reference point in areas including large-scale institutional transformation, ABL, learning design and innovative teaching practices. Ale is a National Teaching Fellow, a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in the UK. He holds visiting professorships at several universities and is active in external examining and consultancy globally.
Tine Baelmans
More information will be available soon
Albert Sangrà
Albert Sangrà is Director for the UNESCO Chair in Education and Technology for Social Change. Professor and researcher at the Open University of Catalonia, Department of Psychology and Education. Member of the founder team of this university (1994-95), where I served as Director, Methodology and Educational Innovation until 2004, being in charge of the educational model of the university; Director of the M.Sc. program in Education and ICT (e-learning) (2006-2012), and Director of the eLearn Center (2012-2014). I have worked as a consultant and trainer in several online and blended learning projects in Europe, America, Asia, and Australia, focusing on implementation strategies for the use of technology in teaching and learning and its quality. Former Vice-president, European Foundation of Quality on E-Learning (EFQUEL), and member of the Executive Committee of EDEN (2003-2009). Recipient of the 2015 Award for Excellence in eLearning awarded by the World Education Congress. Researcher at the Edul@b research group, and Research Associate at Contact North, Canada. Current Director of the Industrial Doctorates Programme, Government of Catalonia.
Josep M. Duart
Josep M. Duart holds a doctorate in Pedagogy from Ramon Llull University (URL), Barcelona, and a Master in Business Administration from ESADE Business School, Barcelona. He qualified from the University of Barcelona (UB) with a bachelor’s degree in History and in Education, and also has a teaching qualification. He is former vice president for Postgraduate Studies and Lifelong Learning, and former director of the International Graduate Institute at the Open University of Catalonia, UOC (2007-2013). The UOC is a benchmark online university, internationally recognised for quality e-learning, and Dr Duart has played an active role in the development of its educational model, which makes intensive use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Today he is research professor in Educational Sciences and Technology department at the UOC. He was the founder and director of the UNESCO Chair in e-Learning (2002-2009) and academic director of the I International Seminar “Leading Universities in the Knowledge Society”. He is the editor-in-chief of the “International Journal od Educational Technology in Higher Education” ethe.uoc.edu. (Former RUSC. Universities and Knowledge Society Journal, rusc.uoc.edu) a journal published by Springer and co-edited by UOC and Universidad de los Andes (Colombia).
Josep Maria Garrell
Josep Maria Garrell is the President of the European University Association (EUA) since 2023. Formerly, he was the Rector of the Universitat Ramon Llull (URL) in Barcelona (2012-2022), and he also held different managing positions at the same university. He also served as a member of the Advisory Council on Science and Technology of the Parliament of Catalonia (CAPCIT) (2014-2022), as a member of the Standing Committee of the National Pact for the Knowledge Society of Catalonia (2018-2022), and as Vice-President of CRUE Spanish Universities (2021-2022). He holds a PhD in Electronic Engineering (URL), and he is specialised in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Recipient of the Catalan Research Foundation Grant to expand his work at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center at Carnegie Mellon University (US). In 2019, he was awarded as “Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques” by the French Republic.
Important Dates
| Early bird registration deadline | September 7, 2025 |
| Registration and payment deadline | October 19, 2025 |
| Arrivals | November 4, 2025 |
| DELA 2025 | November 5-7, 2025 |
| Departures | Evening November 7 or November 8, 2025 |
Fees*
| Early Bird EDEN members | 400 eur |
| Early Bird non-members | 500 eur |
| Late EDEN members | 490 eur |
| Late non-members | 550 eur |
*The fee includes participation in 3 day hands-on seminar in Barcelona, access to training materials in Moodle, a participant goodies bag, 3 days coffee break and lunch catering, 1 dinner in the city with a cultural visit (most probably one of the Gaudi’s buildings).
The venue for EDEN Digital Education Academy has been purposefully chosen to be Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. The UOC was created in 1995 as the world’s first university with a virtual campus, which allowed its students to study at any time from any location. The University continually uses cutting-edge e-learning research and innovation to refine the UOC methodology. This is possible thanks to UOC R&I and its 50 plus research groups, as well as the eLearning Innovation Center, which drives educational innovation at the UOC. With more than 100,000 graduates, it is now one of the biggest universities in Spain.
EDEN Digital Education Leadership Academy will be organized in a modern UOC campus located in an ex-industrial creative and cultural Poblenou area allowing an easy reach to the Barcelona central attractions and a walking distance to the beach.
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, The U building Carrer del Perú, 52, 08018 Barcelona. See the location on Google Maps.
Plan Your Stay in Barcelona
As Barcelona is such a travel destination hotels are not interested in prebooking rooms for participants. There are many different hotels and other types of accomodation around the venue. Therefore, we advise prebooking yourself a most convenient type of accomodation as soon as you plan your trip to DELA.
EDEN DELA Social Programme – November 6
19:00 Visit and dinner
More information coming soon.
EDEN DELA 2024 Visit to Gaudi Casa Vicens
EDEN DELA 2023 Visit to Casa Milà from Gaudí
