What to expect from SROC 2018

This year the conference will feature 4 inspirational plenary speakers looking at the challenges facing professional services; understanding customer experience, public engagement and innovation. Well, if they aren’t some of the over-arching challenges facing us today, I don’t know what are!

I’ve been attending SROC for many years now and it always amazes me how talented our community is. Somehow, we keep updated and relevant within a shifting HE landscape and how we embrace and support change.

I find SROC gives insight into the practicalities of our every-day working life. The breakout presenters supply a wide range of experiences that we can take inspiration from and take back to our institutions. Then there are the fantastic networking opportunities. Ask any previous SROC delegate and they will tell you this is a very friendly conference offering a great community experience and support network.

Looking at the full conference programme, there is a crafted mix of diverse, challenging sessions that have been constructed to give a fuller conference experience as possible; giving the insight into practical solutions that we can all learn from. If you have not been to SROC before, it will be a worthwhile 10 minutes of your time to look at the full programme details on the SROC website. (The conference dinner is at Hull’s amazing award-winning aquarium, The Deep. Now that’s an experience in itself)!

Attending SROC qualifies you to apply for one of the SROC bursaries to attend the SACRAO Conference (our sister organisation) in the US. This is a staff development opportunity that is a flagship option open to SROC delegates. Having benefitted from this bursary in the past, all I can say is wow! Last year’s bursary holders will present at the conference; always good to have that international perspective. The US may have a wider customer base to manage (they also include 16+ education in many HE establishments), but like us, have very similar challenges (although I’m personally not convinced about their data protection ethos; but that can be debated elsewhere!). If you’re involved in supporting and managing students, SROC will supply amazing benefits to you.

I hope to see you there.

Phillip Russell-Lacy (SROC Steering Committee)

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