It’s time we gave higher education the love (and the whole story) it deserves
By Clare Ody, VP of PBSA, Brand & Partnerships at Kinetic on the Higher Education Sector Dr Jo Saxton CBE said what more of us need to be saying: the positive, confident, data-backed case for higher education. That interview has inspired me to speak up. I listened to Dr Jo Saxton’s interview on Times Radio […]
Universities may be sitting on a hospitality business they don’t fully recognise
By Bella O., Kinetic Software with Fiona Cooper and Quinten Gazendam, Smarthotel. When searching for accommodation, conference venues, or meeting spaces, most people do not think to consider universities. Instead, they typically compare options through hotel booking sites, venue-finding platforms, search engines, and increasingly, AI-powered discovery tools. This means that university accommodations can only enter […]
Designing for Gen Alpha: What the Research Says About Spaces, Technology, and Connection
Reflections from “Gen Alpha: Are You Ready?” | CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026 | Part Two of Two By Heba Khan, Marketing Coordinator, Kinetic The first article in this series looked at who Generation Alpha actually are: what the research reveals about their relationship with technology, their aspirations, the pressures they are carrying, and why […]
AI Native Does Not Mean AI Obsessed: Getting to Know Generation Alpha
Reflections from “Generation Alpha: Are You Ready?” | CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026 | Part One of Two By Heba Khan, Marketing Coordinator, Kinetic Generation Alpha arrives at university in 2028. That is two years away. And if the conversation at CUBO Residence Life 2026 was anything to go by, the sector is only just […]
The Journey Rarely Begins With Hate: Understanding the Manosphere and What It Means for Student Accommodation
Reflections from “Digital Masculinity and the Manosphere” | CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026 By Heba Khan, Marketing Coordinator, Kinetic There was a moment in this session that stopped the room. Not a statistic. Not a policy point. Just a sentence. “The journey rarely begins with hate. It often begins with loneliness, insecurity, ambition, rejection.” Clement […]
Why Students Say One Thing and Do Another: Making Your Residence Life Programme Work Harder
Reflections from “Building Connections: The Power of Residence Life in Student Experience” | CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026 | Part Two of Two By Heba Khan, Marketing Coordinator, Kinetic This is the second of two articles drawing on research presented by Sarah Ead, Head of Insight at GSL, at the CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026. […]
The Belonging Problem: Why First Impressions in Student Accommodation Are Harder to Fix Than You Think
Reflections from “Building Connections: The Power of Residence Life in Student Experience” | CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026 | Part One of Two By Heba Khan, Marketing Coordinator, Kinetic At the CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026, Sarah Ead, Head of Insight at GSL, presented preliminary findings from their annual student experience report ahead of its […]
The Inspection Backlog Hiding in Plain Sight
It’s time to catch up, to protect your resources. By Clare Ody, FIoL, PC.dp.(GDPR), VP Brand and Partnerships, Kinetic Picture the scene: It is the end of term. A small accommodation team is working through a stack of paper inspection sheets, cross-referencing with a spreadsheet, trying to confirm which rooms need maintenance sign-off before the […]
Stop Running Events. Start Building a Curriculum.
Reflections from “Building Co-Curricular Development into Your Residence Life Programme” | CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026 By Heba Khan, Marketing Coordinator, Kinetic There is a version of residence life that looks like this: a team works hard all year, putting on event after event, responding to whatever students say they want, measuring success by how […]
What Students Say vs. What Students Need: Reflections from CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026
By Heba Khan, Marketing Coordinator, Kinetic I’ll be honest: walking back into Loughborough University this week felt strange in the best way. The last time I was here, I was a student. This time, I was attending the CUBO Residence Life Conference 2026 as part of the Kinetic team. Two days, several sessions, a lot […]
