Start: Friday 3rd July 2026 | Time 12:00 midday
Finish: Sunday 5th July 2026 | Time 14:00
Leonardo Hotel Cardiff
1 Park Pl, Cardiff CF10 3DN
Download the Conference programme 2026
Please note: The deadline for submissions was midnight GMT on Sunday, 30th November 2025.
The Keynote Speakers for the BELMAS 2026 conference were: David Gurr, Chantelle Haughton and Kevin Palmer.
DSA winner, Victoria Showunmi, accepting her prestigious award from DFAB Chair and incoming BELMAS Chair, Steve Courtney.
To view past DSA winners and learn more about the Distinguished Service Award, click HERE.
The EMAL Best Paper winners are:
Haiyan Qian, Allan Walker and Yulian Zheng, for their paper, ‘Boundary-Spanning Practices of System Leaders in China: Enabling Conditions and Inherent Tensions’
Here, Senior Associate Editor of EMAL, Alexander Gardner-McTaggart, and SAGE’s Justine Hope, accept the award on the winners’ behalf from EMAL Editor-In-Chief, Tony Bush.
This year, EMAL awarded a joint Best ECR Paper.
The winners are:
Sebrina L. Doyle Fosco, Melia A. Brown and Deborah L. Schussler for their paper, ‘Factors Affecting Educational Leader Wellbeing: Sources of Stress and Self-Care’
Wenyan Jiang, Wenlan Wang and Hongbiao Yin for their paper, ‘’Being Happy Means Doing it Together’: Exploring the Interpersonal Emotional Regulation of Kindergarten Principals
Here, Senior Associate Editor of EMAL, Alexander Gardner-McTaggart, and SAGE’s Justine Hope, accept the award on the winners’ behalf from EMAL Editor-In-Chief, Tony Bush.
The 2026 MiE Board Choice Award winner is:
Mette Liljenberg, for ‘Keeping Distance or Getting Involved? Principals’ Sensemaking of Pedagogical Leadership for Instructional Improvement’
Here, MiE Editor-In-Chief, Paul Armstrong, and SAGE’s Justine Hope present the award to Mette.
Our 2026 Doctoral Thesis Award winner is:
Heathcliff Schembri for his thesis, ‘A “Revolution” or a “Transformation”? A Study of System-Wide Educational Reform in Malta’
Here, Heathcliff collects his award from BELMAS Awards, Bursaries and Grants Committee Chair, Lizana Oberholzer.
Our 2026 Doctoral Thesis Award Runner-Up is:
Sarah Chung for her thesis, ‘Primary School Governor Training: Exploring The Fitness for Purpose of the Content and Mode of Delivery in England’
Here, Sarah collects her award from BELMAS Awards, Bursaries and Grants Committee Chair, Lizana Oberholzer.
Our 2026 Best BELMAS Blog winners are:
Alexandra E. Pavlakis, Meredith P. Richards and J. Kessa Roberts for their blog post, ‘Turbulent Tides: Leadership and Student Homelessness During Natural Disaster’
Here, BELMAS Blog Editor, John Luker, and BELMAS Blog Managing Editor, Karen Healey, accept the award on behalf of Alexandra, Meredith and Kessa. Of the award, Karen said:
“This year there was very strong competition for the BELMAS Blog Award, judged against the criteria of advancing or challenging thinking in educational leadership, encouraging collaboration and debate, and promoting reflective, research-informed practice.
This blog demonstrated the strongest overall balance across the criteria. It combines a compelling sense of urgency with a strong research foundation, while challenging us to think differently about leadership, crisis response, and social justice in ways that resonate internationally across educational contexts in an increasingly precarious world.”
Read the award-winning blog here.
Our joint 2026 Best Conference Paper winners are:
Nidal Al Haj Sleiman for her paper, ‘Beyond the Rhetorics of Reform: School Leadership and Policy Enactment in Kuwait’
Thomas Perry for his paper, ‘School Leader Wellbeing and Retention: Insights from a UK Survey and Workforce Data’
In the photos above, Nidal and Tom are presented their awards by BELMAS Chair, Deb Outhwaite.
Our 2026 Best ECR Conference Paper winner is:
Xiaoting Guo for her paper, ‘Instructional Leadership in China: Multiple Primary School Case Studies’
Here, Xiaoting is presented her award by BELMAS Chair, Deb Outhwaite (following what may have been the best reaction to winning an award in BELMAS history! Thank you, Xiaoting!).
Our 2026 Best Poster winner is:
Orla Jackson – ‘Leader Know Thyself – The liminality of Leadership in a Time of Crisis’
Huge congratulations to all our 2026 BELMAS Conference Award Winners!
