For our 2025 conference, we are proud to be announcing a thought-provoking and exciting conference title: Disruptions, Futures and Enterprise Education.

Hosted by Manchester Metropolitan University, the conference will be inspired by Manchester’s radical history and culture, which includes being the birthplace of cooperatives, home to the suffragettes and having a famous and influential creative scene. These phenomenon were borne out of disruptions, crises and frustration, prompting alternative visions – and action – which created new forms of business, activism and culture.

Now, we are seeking to stimulate debate across all those working to create entrepreneurial outcomes to explore how our work can shape desirable futures for communities and society, locally and globally.

We acknowledge the multi-crisis environment and aim to challenge thinking across enterprise and entrepreneurship education. We are inviting speakers and delegates to consider the relationship between enterprise and entrepreneurship education and futures we want. The conference will explore a range of question, including, but not limited to:

Disruptions – how are educators, support staff and leaders confronting and working with disruptions –  such as the multi-crisis, meta-crisis environment – in ways that provide agency to students, colleagues and community? How are provision, programmes and support helping students recognise systemic flaws and limits and preparing them to work differently? How are disruptions being used as a source for inspiration for entrepreneurial thinking and action, in, alongside and outside of the curriculum? What are the positive disruptions that entrepreneurship can generate?

Futures – Who  are the entrepreneurs and enterprising employees that will build desirable futures? What are the structures, businesses and organisations which will support their ambition? How can enterprise and entrepreneurship education support and shape futures we want? Are there things that we need to stop doing, not just start doing, to shape more desirable futures. What needs to be consigned to the past, and what new movements are underway or needed? How are universities contributing to sustainable and inclusive entrepreneurial eco-systems now and in the future?

Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education – What developments, adaptations and innovations in engagement, pedagogies, curriculum and provision support desirable futures and why? What concepts, frameworks, activities, partnerships, and projects are showing new ways forward that will inspire action and change in the field. How can enterprise and entrepreneurship educators be at the forefront of future-focused curriculum, student engagement,  business creation, and industry/community collaboration.

Collectively, questions such as these help unpick our conference theme and explore the breadth of enterprise and entrepreneurship education as experienced across FE and HE and elsewhere.

Why Manchester?

As well as tapping into the city’s rich history and vibrant present, IEEC 2025 will be hosted by Manchester Metropolitan University, which has a strong track record and reputation of excellence with regards to sustainability and future orientation. The university has been a Top 3 for sustainability for more than 10 years. Its ‘Road to 2030 strategy’ has ‘future-focused curriculum’ as a key aim and educators and scholars work have developed award winning education provision and research that connects with, and benefits, people, groups and organisations across the city.

IEEC is known for its highly interactive, participant focused parallel sessions. This year the conference will start with a city and start-up scene tour on Tuesday night and include two full days, as well as an ‘unconference’ on Friday which will provide a space and place for special interest groups and communicates to meet, share and organise. The conference will take place at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Faculty of Business and Law, on Manchester’s Oxford Road.

For more background to next year’s theme, please visit the IEEC website.

The call for session proposals and registrations for IEEC2025 will open in Spring 2025. We look forward to welcoming you to Manchester next year!