CGHE 12th annual conference 2027: Universities in an algorithmic age – Data, AI and the future of higher education

Higher education systems around the world are being transformed by the embedding of algorithmic capitalism into teaching, learning and research. Commercially-owned large language models and AI tools are transforming the way academics and students think, collaborate, write and publish. Whether discussed through the analytical lens of ‘platformisation’, ‘big data’ ‘learning analytics’ or ‘ed-tech’, differential digital access and support within and between higher education systems is creating new divides and enclosures. Critics point to growing surveillance, data-extractivism and the corruption of science.

As ever, with threat comes opportunity. AI tools accelerate research and discovery, enable new forms of pedagogy, facilitate virtual mobility and open up access to knowledge. There is also growing resistance to corporate logics, with calls for regenerative, ecologically sustainable and reparative universities. Many academics and research policy actors are committed to building not-profit Open Science infrastructures and a shared knowledge commons.

Themes will be updated soon.