The event was a lively and productive day, bringing together a mixture of practitioners and academics and allowing voices to be heard who couldn’t make it in person through pre-recordings, as well as lively Twitter activity using #edleadres. A big thank you to all those who contributed.

We are very grateful to Newcastle University for hosting the event in their Research Beehive, for support from the department’s leadership and to Eat Courtyard for excellent catering.

The sleet lashed down on the building and we found a cosy space to hear first hand accounts challenging educationalists to pick up research on current leadership issues, to find out how researchers were constructing appropriate designs to address topical issues and to explore through a keynote and plenary the context for this research, its challenges and its opportunities. Notes from the day which summarise the key questions arising (apologies to those in the qualitative design workshops for whom there are no direct references) are available here.

Presenters have been given an opportunity to add their on-the-day presentations to the website and we have started planning the follow-on event for early career researchers as part of the BERA annual conference, this year in Leeds. This will allow further discussion about methodological creativity and challenges as well as planning for a special issue in the BELMAS journal Management in Education in 2017.