Rijeka, Croatia 25–28 September 2025

Program highlights

Keynotes & flagship presentations

• Ciaran Sugrue opened the conference with an inspiring keynote on navigating “interesting times”: how the interplay of language, deliberative leadership, and professional responsibility can help leaders craft hopeful and realistic futures.
• Karin Doolan presented a powerful examination of education and disasters, drawing on global case studies — from wildfires and hurricanes to earthquakes — and on the study Vulnerability and resilience of schools in the aftermath of natural hazard-related disasters.
• Jonathan James (OECD) delivered Agency in Action: School Leadership for a Sustainable Tomorrow, highlighting how leadership agency and system-level policy can work together to secure sustainable, future-ready education systems.
• Manos Antoninis (UNESCO GEM Report) closed the conference keynote programme with Lead for Learning: Leadership for Inclusion — Lessons from Central and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, offering policy-level insights on inclusive leadership that can inform national and regional strategies for equity in education.

Parallel sessions, panels and international contributions

Following the keynotes, a rich programme of presentations from multiple countries explored practical approaches to resilience, inclusion and collaborative leadership — connecting research, policy and practice. These sessions showcased real-world examples of how leaders and communities are forging paths to stronger, more inclusive schools.

Local engagement and school visits

Participants visited local preschools, primary and secondary schools, and met representatives from the local authority. These visits provided invaluable ground-level perspectives on school life in Rijeka and nearby communities, and offered opportunities for meaningful exchange between international delegates and local educators. We are deeply grateful to our generous hosts for their warm welcome and for facilitating these on-the-ground encounters.

Importance of hearing about experiences of others in dealing with common problems/situation, and the possibility to interact directly, was the highlight for me. The role of leaders and the necessary support for them, are critical to school development/improvement. However, there is more to be done in terms of sustaining the current practice of leadership and ensuring necessary improvements.