Sandra Romenska, MA

Sandra Romenska, MA is Research Associate with the Creating Academic Learning Futures (CALF) research project at the University of Leicester.
 
Her research interests are: Innovation and change in higher education, processes of institutional reform, systemic change; Education and development, education for reconstruction, education and conflict; Complexity theories and the possibilities for their application in the social sciences; Research methodologies and comparative social science, in particular possibilities for combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. Structural equation modelling and agent-based modelling; Future studies.
 
Sandra authored Innovation in Higher Education Systems in the Post-socialist Countries in Central and Eastern Europe, 1999–2005: possibilities for exploration through a complexity theory framework, Wiki Future Gazing, and The learning technologies of the future: technologies that learn?.
 
According to the OECD, higher education systems are being challenged by powerful forces from three interrelated fields: demography, funding availability, and technological innovation. Higher education institutions in the UK in particular are faced with two trends: a decline in the number of traditional learners, due to demographic changes and the introduction of tuition fees, and a rise in the number of nontraditional learners, driven by expansion of the knowledge economy, innovation in technology, and increased mobility.
 
Her talk Creating Academic Learning Futures in the UK at WorldFuture 2009 focused on creating and exploring alternative futures for higher education through scenarios from emerging student voices. Taking the perspective of higher education and new technologies as complex systems, it highlighted the possibilities for modeling futures using participatory and interactive methods.
 
Sandra earned her MA from the University of Warwick in Educational Research.