That was the year that was and will be
27 July 2026
Andrew Crisp reports on a busy academic year 2025-2026 and looks ahead to the next few months.
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, the year ends this week, well the academic year at least. It seems a good moment to provide an annual report and to thank all those we’ve had the pleasure to work with and who have put their trust in us over the past 12 months.
For CarringtonCrisp it has been a year that began with lifelong learning and ends in the same way. The year began at the House of Commons with the launch of a new report with the Universities Association for Lifelong Learning titled, ‘Making Lifelong Learning Central to University Strategy’. The year ends with the final elements being completed for our third report on ‘The future of lifelong and executive education’, being published in August.
And as ever, in between, a wide range of projects, spanning university strategy, focused on tourism, hospitality, entrepreneurship, AI and increasingly, health, on rankings, covering alumni, across all degree levels and education from ages 3-18. And across the globe, with our travels taking us to Accra, Bangkok, Barcelona, Bled, Boston, Brisbane, Canberra, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Jamshedpur, Lausanne, London, Madrid, Malaga, Melbourne, New York, Nottingham, Perth, Seville, Singapore, Toronto and Vienna among others. Add to this, two new associates, one with detailed knowledge of east Asia and the other with considerable US experience, and our ability to deliver around the world continues to grow.
Our annual reports continue to be published – Tomorrow’s MBA, Tomorrow’s Masters, Alumni Matters and The Business of Branding. With three specialist reports published as well, What Women Want (examining the role and impact of business education on women’s career), Knowing Me, Knowing You, the third in our series examining marcoms in business education (conducted with EFMD and Roe Communications) and the third See the Future report with (EFMD, Full Fabric and 4uni-solutions).
The See the Future report took us to Vienna to speak at the EFMD Deans conference, with other speaking slots at the EFMD External Relations conference, the Australian Business Deans Council, AAPBS in Vietnam, the India-UK Business Education Dialogue and on development programmes for Deans and Exec Ed Directors run by the Chartered Association of Business Schools.
Looking ahead to the next 12 months, there are some exciting opportunities already in the diary. Next month sees us running a webinar with LinkedIn on lifelong and executive education, and in September we’ll head back to Delhi and the second India-UK Business Education Dialogue when we’ll publish our new report, ‘International India’. Later in September, we’ll be at the CEEMAN Annual Conference in Bucharest to chair a session on future trends. In October, we’ll be back in Bucharest for the GBSN conference talking about the initial findings from a new study, Voices across Africa, followed up with the Chartered ABS annual conference in London in November. And before the end of the year, we’ll be in Indonesia at the AAPBS annual conference, as well as at the first ABDC annual conference in Melbourne to speak about ‘New Products for New Markets in Business Education’.
If you would like to know more about CarringtonCrisp and how we work with universities and business schools, or have an idea for a research project, we would be delighted to hear from you. Just drop us an email at info@carringtoncrisp.com
Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva