Save the Date and Keynote Speaker Announcement for the 2025 National Symposium on the Student Experience and Wellbeing in Higher Education
After the success of the 2024 National Symposium on the Student Experience and Wellbeing in Higher Education, we are delighted to announce that the Symposium will be returning to the University of Melbourne on Friday October 24th 2025. Please save this date in your calendars, and sign up to our mailing list so you don’t miss out on future announcements. Early bird registrations and abstract submissions will open in July.
We are also thrilled to share the news that our keynote speaker will be the esteemed clinical psychologist and co-founder of Self-Determination Theory, Professor Richard M. Ryan (full bio below).
Bio
Richard Ryan, Ph.D., is a Professor at the Institute for Positive Psychology & Education at the Australian Catholic University, North Sydney, where he has been acknowledged by The Australian as one of Australia’s top researchers listing him on the Lifetime Achievers Leaderboard. He is also a Distinguished Professor in the College of Education at Ewha Womans University, in South Korea, and Visiting Professor at Imperial College London. A clinical psychologist and co-developer of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), Ryan is a leading expert on motivation and vitality — how we cultivate high-quality motivation and engagement, foster positive change, and enhance vitality and wellness. Ryan lectures frequently on the factors that promote motivation and healthy functioning in areas as work and organizations, education, health, sport and exercise, and technology use.
Reflective of Ryan’s influence internationally and across disciplines, he has been recognized as one of the eminent psychologists of the modern era and is listed among the ‘World’s Top 20 Scientists’, across all fields. He is also the most cited psychological scientist today having authored over 500 papers and books in the areas of human motivation and well-being, Ryan has also been honored with multiple lifetime achievement awards for his work on motivation, personal meaning, and self and identity, and has received an honorary Doctorate from the University of Thessaly, and honorary professorships at the University of Bath, UK and Northeast Normal University – Changchun, China.