Inclusive Educational Practice in a Global Age: Whose Voices Count, and Who Is It Really For?

In this lecture, Dr Eric C.G. Baumgartner SFHEA explores what it means to build genuinely inclusive education systems in an era of global transformation. Drawing on more than two decades of senior leadership across universities in the UK, Europe, and East Asia, he brings a nuanced and deeply human perspective to the structural, cultural, and pedagogical changes required to create learning environments in which all students can thrive. 
 
Grounded in his experience leading large, complex academic portfolios Eric examines how inclusive education must be embedded at institutional level through strategy, governance, curriculum design, and partnership working. 
He adopts a global perspective, reflecting comparative insights from the UK, Japan, Europe, and transnational education partnerships. He connects his scholarly work in Applied Social Sciences, youth justice, masculinities, and inclusive pedagogies to practical leadership approaches that enable institutions to respond to diverse student identities and lived experiences. 
 
Interwoven throughout is Eric's personal educational journey as a care‑experienced, gay, mature, and international student in the UK, alongside his early education in Germany. These experiences shape his values‑based approach to leadership and his sustained commitment to equity, access, and social justice. He challenges universities to rethink their role in an increasingly interconnected world and offers strategic, actionable pathways for advancing inclusive education on a global scale. 

Biography

Dr Eric C.G. Baumgartner SFHEA is an experienced senior academic leader with a distinguished track record in transformation, strategic planning, and organisational development across higher education. Currently Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, he has previously held senior roles at the University of the West of Scotland, Nottingham Trent University, Teesside University, and Teikyo University of Japan in Durham
 
A scholar of Applied Social Sciences, Eric holds a PhD from Durham University and has an extensive dissemination and keynote record spanning masculinities, youth justice, inclusive pedagogies, and epistemic dominance. He has supervised multiple doctoral candidates, served on editorial boards, acted as a peer reviewer for leading journals, and generated substantial income through consultancy, contract research, and transnational education partnerships. 

His career reflects a sustained and unwavering commitment to inclusive education, and impactful, values‑based leadership. His leadership style is deeply intertwined with his own experience of being a care-experienced, gay, mature, and international student in the UK, and his own educational journey prior to university in Germany.