Industry events and speakers

We take pride in connecting university life with the ever-evolving creative industries. To support this, we regularly invite leading experts from local, national, and international creative and cultural sectors to share their insights and experiences with our students.

These guest speakers provide valuable industry perspectives that can inspire your work and help you shape your career path. We invite a broad cross-section of people to reflect our various programme areas. Many of these talks are recorded and available on our virtual learning platform and in our library so you can access them anytime.

VC Talks

To encourage a more ambitious culture of critical thinking across the university, the VC talks take place on selected Thursdays throughout the academic year. We invite outstanding and distinguished practitioners, thought leaders, researchers, and educators to talk to our community of staff and students about their latest experiences and developments in their fields of expertise to inspire us all.

Big Book Crit

Every year, our Business & Employability team organises Norwich Big Book Crit – a huge networking and portfolio review event with a wide range of top local creative professionals and employers.

The Big Book Crit is a portfolio review with a difference. It’s like speed dating but for industry feedback and career advice. Students bring a collection of their current work and are given about fifteen minutes to chat through their progress with an experienced industry professional. After each session, the students switch seats and discuss their work with a different guest.

Industry attendees included creative directors, design leads, photographers and animators, representing sectors like advertising, web development, communications, film production, photography and fashion.

Norwich boasts a dynamic and flourishing creative community, and the Big Book Crit is a wonderful opportunity for businesses to come together and share ideas. It can also be an invaluable introduction into this community for current students and recent graduates, some of which will gain connections that could form the beginnings of their careers.

The Big Book Crit is hosted by Norwich University of the Arts in collaboration with DMA Talent. Of the six locations in which the Big Book Crit is held in the UK, London, Norwich, Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds and Manchester, Norwich is the largest in terms of students and professionals attending.