2025 Keynote Speakers Announced

We are delighted to announce our keynote speakers for our 2025 virtual forum.

Davide Nicolini – Monday 28th April 2025 12-2pm

Davide Nicolini is Professor of Organization Studies at Warwick Business School, where he co-directs the PhD programme, leads the IKON Research Centre, and coordinates the Practice, Process and Institution Research Programme. His current research focuses on developing the practice-based approach and its application to shed new light on phenomena such as organizational attention, expertise, managerial knowing, collaboration, safety, and technological innovation in organizations. Over the years, he has used these approaches to study healthcare organizations, managerial work, construction sites, factories, public organizations, cybersecurity, pharmacies, scientific labs, and investment ecosystems.

Davide’s talk will revisit the relationship between academic theory and work practices in view of some recent and not-so-recent developments in praxeological thinking, suggesting that while practitioners can benefit from access to “theory,” the “theory” they need may be different from that produced by current academic practices and a praxeological orientation invites us to expand what counts as academic “theory” and re-think the relationship between theory, practice, theory-makers and practitioners.

Catherine-Rose Stocks-Rankin – Friday 2nd May 2025 12-2pm

Catherine-Rose is a knowledge mobiliser and has worked across different areas of policy and practice, including community development, health, social care, youth justice, children and family services and public health. Her research brings together an ethics of care and the sociology of knowledge. She is also an experienced evaluator using creative methods and contribution analysis.

At her heart, Catherine-Rose is a carer – someone who looks to the ways we can repair and heal. She was a young carer and a care worker. Then she studied systems of care. Now, she works to repair the systems of support we have around us.

As the Co-Director of the Scottish Policy & Research Exchange, Catherine-Rose is focused on supporting just and equitable governance in Scotland by connecting decision makers with a diversity of research about the problems we face. As the Co-Chair of Social Action Inquiry Scotland, Catherine-Rose supported a four-year learning process about how change happens when it is led directly by communities.