City, University of London hosted the CPD Forum Conference ‘Professional Best Practice: Past, Present and Future’ on 20^th June, in partnership with Central Saint Martins, King’s College London and Imperial College London.

The event was a great success, with an unprecedented attendance rate of 96% and delegates coming from as far afield as Cork to listen to keynote speakers and take part in group workshops.

Speakers included Professor Stephanie Marshall, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Academy; Dr JoEllyn Prouty McLaren, Director of Cass Executive Education; and Professor Yvonne Hillier, Professor of Education at the University of Brighton, covering topics such as development of executive education and the future of lifelong learning.

The afternoon workshops, hosted by the conference organisers, received fantastic delegate participation, and revealed common issues faced with CPD programmes in various institutions, including marketing, administration and international CPD. The workshops aimed to find solutions to challenges highlighted by delegates, but the recurring themes illustrated the need for future CPD conferences.

The conference was “very useful from both a professional knowledge-enhancing perspective, as well as from a networking perspective,” said one delegate.

Bill Richardson, Manager of CPD Programmes at City, University of London, and one of the CPD Forum organisers, said “the forum materialised initially through a need for London higher education institutions (HEIs) to engage and share experiences and best practice for delivering CPD and short course programmes. We are delighted that our mutual interests now extend beyond London and we were extremely please to welcome a wide variety of institutions from across the UK.

“We hope that this is the start of an annual event, bringing all professionals together to transform the future delivery of CPD programmes.”