This paper explores a model for developing student and staff partnerships to enhance the quality of teaching and learning and situates the model in literature on student engagement. The model enables staff and students to step outside their normal roles and the traditional student-teacher relationship into a less pre-defined mode of interaction and liminal space where conversations about teaching and learning can take place. At the most transformative, this model enables academic staff to get a sense of learner perspectives and to view students as partners and collaborators while students develop insights into the perspectives of staff. The authors argue that the model represents an innovative approach to engaging students in a meaningful way in enhancing teaching and learning and has the potential to reframe the student-teacher relationship into a more collaborative one that goes beyond listening to students.Keywords: academic development; liminality; partnership; quality enhancement; student engagement AcknowledgementsWe wish to acknowledge the funding from the Higher Education Academy to develop the Student Teaching and Learning Consultant scheme and the students who did such a fantastic job as student consultants.* Email: k.jensen@hud.ac.uk Notes on contributorsKathrine Jensen is a research assistant at the Teaching and Learning Institute at the University of Huddersfield where she supports and connects colleagues to develop inspiring and innovative teaching and learning. Her current areas of research are academic development, collaborative learning, enhancing teaching and learning and student engagement.Dr Liz Bennett is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education and Professional Development where she is course Leader for the MA Action Research and the MSc Technology Enhanced Learning. Her area of research is in the field of academic development and its relationship with technology.

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In 2015, the University of Huddersfield Press launched Fields: the journal of Huddersfield student research. The journal was developed with two key purposes: ensuring that high quality student research was made available to a broader audience and inspiring students to work to the highest standards by considering the potential of their work for impact in the wider world. The existing literature is reviewed regarding the growth of student research journals, as well as some of the benefits these journals can offer to students. The institutional rationale for Fields is outlined and the process of setting up a multidisciplinary open access student research journal is discussed. The outcomes of an evaluation are presented with particular focus to lessons learned and future developments to improve support for authors. The experience of the project team will be useful to universities and university presses considering strategies for supporting students to develop research for publication/dissemination.

Our article draws on research undertaken with children during the 2020–21 COVID-19 pandemic in order to consider the potential of digitally mediated participatory research for child-centred research practice. Our specific focus is on how children’s inclusion can be centred in the absence of opportunities to meet in person. We reflect on how we sought to support children’s engagement through offline and online creative activities and explore how these digitally mediated spaces can facilitate children’s inclusion, creative engagement and dialogue. We offer examples from our arts-based, digitally mediated research to consider how researchers might work remotely, yet inclusively, in contexts where children have been marginalised and their voices silenced. Our research suggests that scaffolding creative activities through bespoke digital animation and asynchronous chat can facilitate children to participate in ways of their choosing. However, to address equity of inclusion researchers must attend to the contingencies of children’s digital, material and social exclusion.

Within higher education, there is a continued focus on teaching quality, with teaching excellence often linked to the idea of engaging and motivating students. This article examines the concept of ‘inspirational’ teaching, going beyond notions of excellent teaching, and proposes that inspirational teaching is defined by being transformational in the sense that it has a sustained positive impact on student learning. By exploring current literature on inspirational teaching, including some literature on teaching excellence, four overarching themes are identified as constituents of inspirational teaching: knowledge and passion for the subject, understanding learning and knowledge, constructive and challenging learning environment and students as individuals, partners and colleagues. The practices of the inspirational teachers presented are characterised by their focus on student learning rather than teacher performance and so indicate that inspirational teaching is an outcome that cannot be reduced to a set of characteristics or practices. Finally, we conclude that collaborative and scholarly relationships between students and teachers underpin these four themes and are central to creating inspirational learning experiences.