Fourth Series of the Flourishing Student Webinar
Co-hosted by The Jubilee Centre and Wake Forest University, The Flourishing Student international webinar series features presentations on the role of universities to help their students to cultivate the character and attributes required for human flourishing. After the success of the first three series, in this fourth series, we are delighted to host more world leading universities renowned for their focus on character education, to share their knowledge and expertise. The series starts with a panel webinar where we revisit the universities we heard from in Series One. Invitations will be sent to everyone who has registered for the Global Character Alliance newsletter. Please share the link with colleagues who may be interested in attending the online webinar series.
Promoting Harmony through Character Education: Asian and International Perspectives
SCCCE is delighted to bring together researchers, educators, practitioners and organisational leaders from Singapore and around the world to explore how education can contribute to harmony, flourishing and social cohesion across diverse cultural and community contexts. Through the broad lens of character education, the presentations will examine philosophical perspectives, empirical research and educational practices relating to flourishing, social cohesion, and community action.
International Conference on Leadership and Character
The 3rd International Congress on Leadership Education, Leadership and Character, will take place from 2nd – 4th December 2026 in Puebla, Mexico. Organised by Anáhuac University Puebla and the Regnum Christi International Network of Universities, and co-organised by UFV’s Centre for Leadership and the Virtues and Values Education Centre, the congress will feature keynote speakers Kristján Kristjánsson, Mary Crossan, Toby Newstead and Jorge López. The deadline for proposals will be on the 2nd October 2026.
Centre to Host 2nd Africa Regional Conference in Nairobi, Kenya
The Centre for Character and Leadership in collaboration with like-minded partners will host the 2nd Africa Regional Conference from 26th – 28th August 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya. Guided by the theme ‘Cultivating Virtues for Leadership Among Educational Leaders in Colleges and Universities’, the conference will bring together researchers, practitioners, educators, and policy makers to reflect on how to intentionally promote the cultivation of virtues and character strengths in contemporary educational contexts.
Pentecost University Launches Centre for Youth Research and Development
Pentecost University will commence the Centre for Youth Research and Development (CYRD) in September 2026, a pioneering hub dedicated to advancing youth research, character and virtue development, citizenship education, and youth empowerment. The Centre will undertake empirical research, evidence-based training, policy engagement, advocacy, and needs-based empowerment programmes to address emerging youth challenges. As a timely intervention in Ghana, the Centre will complement and strengthen youth research, character development, and evidence-based youth development initiatives across Africa.
Values-based Education Annual Conference 2026, Puckrup Hall Tewkesbury
Come and join us to find out about ‘A Day in the Life of a Values-based School!’. Take away ideas to use straight away. Values-based practitioners and experts will take us through the best experiences you could expect from this practice. From assemblies to classroom lessons, playtimes and going home time – we will share the best pedagogy and practice, celebrating outstanding practice in this field. Come and be inspired!
Dominican Republic’s International Character Education Week
PULSORIA’s International Character Education Week, founded and directed by Ángela Español, is an international initiative developed in collaboration with Dandelion – Centre for Character and Leadership and the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, with the support of the Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña (UNPHU) as the host university in the Dominican Republic. The Week will bring together educators, universities, researchers, policymakers, families, and civil society to advance a shared vision for character education through lectures, workshops, and dialogue with leading international experts, promoting human flourishing, ethical leadership, and the formation of character as essential foundations for education in the 21st century.
Conference - Beyond the Prompt: Character Leadership in Times of AI-Driven Change
Save the Date! Hosted by the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership, Ivey Business School, this Toronto-based conference on 18th November will explore how character leadership can make our organizations more (not less) human by using AI: what to delegate, what to remain human-driven, and how teams can work more efficiently and creatively without losing agency or judgment. Every one of those is a character decision before it is a technology one.
Jubilee Centre Partners on Fourth ECVA Conference
The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues co-hosted the fourth annual European Character and Virtue Association (ECVA) Conference at Trnava University, Slovakia, from 24th – 26th June 2026. The conference brought together more than 100 researchers from over 40 universities across 20 countries and explored the theme Bridging the Knowledge–Action Gap in Character Development. The event showcased the latest international research and strengthened collaboration to advance character education, virtue research and educational practice across Europe and beyond and featured a keynote by Professor James Arthur.
New Journal: Call for Submissions
The Annual Review of Virtue and the Professions is an international, refereed, open-access journal published by Virtues & Vocations at the University of Notre Dame that focuses on cutting-edge interdisciplinary scholarship on integrating character into professional and pre-professional education. Submissions for the first issue, “The Character of Pre-Professional Education,” are due in September.
Repair Work is Central to the Work of Character
Aaron D. Cobb and Emily Hunt-Hinojosa reflect on the influence moral repair has on individuals’ and communities’ ability to build character. Drawing on Margaret Urban Walker’s scholarship, Bryan Stevenson’s reflections on confession and redemption, and examples from institutions like Fort Lewis College and Brandeis University, the two scholars explore what it means for campus communities to reckon with fractures between faculty, staff, and students, and between “town and gown”.
Values-Based Leadership in Public Discourse: How University Leaders Frame Character and Commitment
A new publication in the Journal of Values-Based Leadership uses the KNN Framework for Flourishing as a lens for understanding leadership communication as ethical positioning. Analyzing published quotations from U.S. university leaders during the first hundred days of the second Trump administration reveals a civic-framing gap: Leaders committed to civic-oriented ends yet predominantly reached for moral and intellectual virtue language while civic virtues and caring qualities were muted by comparison.
Imagining a Common Good Character Model that Centers the Social
Baylor University’s Andrew Hogue and the ECI’s Emily Hunt-Hinojosa share learnings from the Common Good Character Trust. Through the group’s discussions, they discovered that “character-building efforts that aim at the common good need a model of character formation that accounts more fully for institutions, cultures, and broader social forces.
Life is Research
Based on 30 years of reflection and researching, the book Life is Research by Vishalache Balakrishnan has been recently published and will be launched on 15th August 2026 at the Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. This book is all about continuous learning, active participation, resilience through failure and self discovery. The book will also be available in Malay, Chinese and Tamil soon.
Forming Genuine Courage is not an Individual Project
In the first instalment of a new series, Aaron D. Cobb, ECI’s Director of Collective Learning, invites us to consider whether courage is a virtue we can develop on our own. Practicing by ourselves is not enough. We need guides: people who can help shape how we learn and show us what good practice looks like.
Character.org Announces 2026 Laws of Life Essay Contest Winners
This year’s winning essays were selected from an international field of submissions and represent a wide range of voices, ages, schools, and countries. “The strongest essays did more than define a value. They told a story, revealed growth, and helped readers think more deeply about their own lives,” said Dr. Emilie Johnson, Director of the Laws of Life Essay Contest.
Ivey Business School, Western University, Canada Taking Applications for Tenured Faculty Position in Organizational Behaviour
We are accepting applications for a tenured faculty position in Organizational Behaviour that will serve as the inaugural Chair in Leader Character within the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership. The Chair’s mandate is to help build a global leadership ecosystem on leader character spanning research, teaching, and practice, establishing the Institute as an important hub of a network of strategic partnerships in Canada and around the world.
Online Spanish Specialist Programme in Character Education – Second Edition
The Virtue and Values Education Centre at Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (Madrid), in collaboration with the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham, is launching the second edition of its 100% online Specialist Programme in Character Education in September 2026. This one-year, Spanish-language programme combines research, international expertise and practical application, equipping educators and school leaders to embed character and virtues across teaching, curriculum and school culture.
Registration is now open.
Leader Character Practitioner Certification Program
The LCPCP offers an accessible deep dive into the Institute’s groundbreaking research, equipping you to become a subject matter expert. Delivered virtually over 13 days using a train-the-trainer approach, three modules build your capacity to raise awareness of leader character, assess and develop it in individuals, teams, and organizations, and embed it in organizational practices—providing research grounding, practical roadmaps, and resources.
Centre Hosts Virtual Coaching and Mentorship Speaker Series to Empower School Leaders
The Centre for Character and Leadership hosted the virtual Coaching and Mentorship Speaker Series to empower a cohort of school leaders on Cultivating Virtues for Leadership. The sessions were held on 25th June and 23rd July 2026. The main topics were titled ‘Creating a Culture Where Everyone Grows: Every Educator is a Chief Empathy Officer’ presented by Dr. Thomas Hoerr; and the “Jubilee Centre Framework for Character Education in Schools” presented by Professor Andrew Peterson.
Early Years Nigeria Initiative Presented During Association for Moral Education Annual Conference, Spain
From 12th – 14th June 2026, Dr Katrina Korb from the Early Years Nigeria attended the 52nd annual conference of the Association for Moral Education which was held in Madrid, Spain. Dr. Katrina presented a poster on Tarbiyya (a culturally relevant character education curriculum) at Practitioners Day and a paper on the design process for adapting indigenous learning activities into an effective curriculum.
Two Founding Members of the Chilean Network Present at AME 2026
Two founding members of the Chilean Network for Character Education presented their work at the 52nd Association for Moral Education Conference in Madrid. Joaquín León-Parodi, academic at Universidad de los Andes, presented ‘Harmony in the Education of Moral Virtues: An Aristotelian-Thomistic Approach,’ examining the integral relationship among moral virtues. Francisco Moller, Director of the UNIR Character Project (UCP), presented POTENCIA during the Programs & Practice Day, sharing lessons from three years of implementing the character education programme in Chile.
Study on Faculty and Staff Views on Character Education
Participate in a research study about character education! The study examines how faculty and staff in higher education think about intentional efforts to support the development of students’ character. Participation should take about 10 minutes. If you have questions, please contact Michael Prinzing (prinzim@wfu.edu). This study has been reviewed by the Institutional Review Board at Wake Forest University (#00026437).
Swedish Educators Complete Character Education Training with VEC
More than 30 school leaders, teachers and representatives from Sweden’s AcadeMedia took part in the Foundations of Character Education for Educators course at the Virtue and Values Education Centre (VEC) at Universidad Francisco de Vitoria. Over three days, participants explored leadership, curriculum design, virtues and a whole-school approach to character education. The programme also included a visit to Stella Maris La Gavia School to observe character education in practice.
Centre to Host 2nd Africa Regional Conference in Nairobi, Kenya
The Centre for Character and Leadership will host the 2nd Africa Regional Conference from 26th – 28th August 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya. This Conference will bring together organizations previously funded under the Global Innovations for Character Development (GICD) and leadership of the Association for Character Development in Africa (ACDA), to collaborate and promote cultivation of virtues among educational leaders working in Colleges and Universities.
Chile National Character Education Seminar 2026
The 2026 National Character Education Seminar brought together policymakers, academics, school leaders, and educators to explore global trends in character education and their relevance to Chilean schools. The keynote address by Agustín Porres situated the topic within an international conversation, emphasizing that character formation is central to the purpose of education. Discussions highlighted the challenge of making character education a public priority while ensuring equity and avoiding ideological imposition. A central message emerged: forming good people is a core responsibility of every school.
Australian Character Education Summit Opens Call for Papers
From 12th – 13th November, the 2026 Australian Character Education Summit aims to explore the fundamentals of Character Education and why it is relevant and important in contemporary Australia. This year’s conference will be hosted at Scotch College, Melbourne. Dr Liz Gulliford of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, UK, has been announced as the first international keynote. The Australian Character Education Summit is therefore inviting relevant practitioners to submit proposals to present at this year’s conference.
Association for Moral Education (AME) Hosts 52nd Annual Conference
From 12th – 14th June 2026, AME held their 52nd annual conference, Re-Creating the Social Fabric in a Fragmented World: Education for Shared Responsibility, bringing together 350 participants from 40 different countries at the Hotel Riu Plaza España, Madrid. The event was organised by the Centre for Character and Human Growth at Universidad Villanueva with the support of the Templeton World Charity Foundation and featured four keynotes, with an additional ‘Policy Roundtable on Moral Education and Public Policy’.
10th Annual Conference of Aretai - Center on Virtues (Italy)
On its 10th anniversary, Aretai – Center on Virtues will dedicate its annual conference to Applied Virtue Ethics, exploring how virtues and practical wisdom can address contemporary challenges in technology, AI, environmental ethics, care, the arts, and institutional life. Keynote speakers include Sylvie Delacroix, Marcello Di Paola, Julia Driver, and Ian James Kidd. During the conference, Julia Driver will receive the 3rd Aretai Center Prize.
Flourishing Schools International Community of Practice (Fall 2026)
This September, join The Greater Good Science Center and educators around the world to explore how to strengthen purpose, empathy, and gratitude in schools and classrooms. You will leave with tangible research-based practices to increase well-being for adults and students, a renewed spirit and sense of belonging, and a Certificate of Completion with 15 clock hours. $99-$149 with scholarships available; no one will be turned away for financial reasons.
Blogging about Values-based Education
The GAVE Research Committee has launched a blog project, organized around the following three Values-based Education (VbE) themes: Conceptualizations/frameworks of VbE, Research methods in VbE, and Best practices in VbE. We invite anyone interested in Values-based Education Research to consider contributing a blog. Blogs should be 500 to 1000 words, target a lay audience, include an image or other multimedia, include a brief positionality statement, and cite appropriate sources.
Transforming Incarcerated Communities Through Character Strengths
What happens when correctional facilities focus on strengths instead of deficits? VIA’s new case study on Shining Light, a nonprofit bringing strengths-based programs to 450,000 incarcerated individuals, offers a striking answer: a 97% positive mindset shift and a 21% drop in violent incidents. Hear more from CEO Ashwani Dhar and Dr. Ryan Niemiec at ECPP in Dublin, July 1–4, and catch Ryan’s keynote, The Character Strengths Revolution.
Kauna: Enhancing the Teacher-Student Relationship Through Indigenous Character-Based Professional Development
Our organization, Early Years Nigeria Initiative (EYNI), based in Jos, Nigeria, implemented a TWCF-funded project that explored the use of indigenous character-training strategies to strengthen resilience. As part of the project, we developed Kauna, a culturally relevant character-based professional development curriculum designed for early childhood educators. The curriculum aimed to enhance teachers’ character and foster teacher-pupil relationships. To evaluate its effectiveness, we assessed the impact of Kauna and found that teachers who participated in the program demonstrated significantly greater sensitivity in their interactions with pupils.
Flourishing amid crises of war and COVID-19 pandemic among undergraduate students
A new study by Missaye Mengstie of the University of Gondar, Ethiopia has been published in the journal Heliyon. The purpose of this study was to examine flourishing amid crises of war and the COVID-19 pandemic. A samples of 373 undergraduate students were chosen to complete VanderWeele’s flourishing index. The findings showed high flourishing scores. The participants thrived in a variety of flourishing dimensions such as mental and physical health, happiness and life satisfaction, character and virtue, and close social relationships. This implies possibility of thriving in challenging circumstances.
Jubilee Centre Staff Publish the First Population-Level Study of Character Education
Using UK Department for Education data from over 3000 English secondary schools between 2016 and 2024, the study examined whether schools recognised for their character education provision through the Association for Character Education’s Quality Mark or Quality Mark Plus showed stronger academic progression than other schools. The findings show that these schools consistently outperformed other English schools on a national measure of academic progress.
Centre Collaborates with Stakeholders to Spearhead Tree Growing Initiative in Schools
The Centre for Character and Leadership together with the East African Cables and Kenya Education Management Institute has spearheaded a tree growing initiative in over 27 Comprehensive and Senior Schools situated in Machakos, Kajiado and Baringo Counties. This collaborative effort has led to the donation and planting of over 8000 indigenous and fruit trees seedlings as part adopt a tree and tag a virtue initiative during this year.
Building Capacity for PRIMED Across the Americas
In late May, the Center for Character and Citizenship hosted an international convening in St. Louis as part of a Templeton World Charity Foundation-funded initiative to expand PRIMED, the CCC’s evidence-based framework for whole-school transformation. Partners from seven countries collaborated to design a certification system for PRIMED Facilitators who will support schools across the Americas. The gathering strengthened a shared commitment to educational excellence, character development, and human flourishing.
Centre Launches a mentoring-based project on Cultivating Virtues for Leadership
On 28th May 2026, the Centre launched a virtual mentoring-based project on Cultivating Virtues for Leadership (CViL). The virtual mentoring-based project comprised a Cohort of School administrators from several Counties in Kenya who have enrolled to attend a series of 12 virtual Coaching and Mentorship Speaker Series. The virtual launch was attended by stakeholders from the Center for Character and Citizenship, Kenya Secondary School Heads Association and Teachers Service Commission.
Harvard Flourishing Program Launch New Website
To mark their 10th anniversary in 2026, the Harvard Flourishing Program (HFP) are seeking reinvigoration through renewed efforts to strengthen communications, enhance public presence, and increase the reach of their work. An early expression is their new website, which offers a clearer way to explore the program’s work, including their flourishing measures, and scholarship. The site highlights their impact initiatives and practical resources for institutions and communities seeking to better understand and promote flourishing.
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