Refocus on Recovery 2027 international conference
Plenary speakers
Refocus on Recovery will feature presentations from keynote speakers, and of accepted abstracts.
Every speaker will address the main hall, as we don’t have parallel tracks. So, we call all of our speakers “plenary speakers”.
Our five keynote speakers will be announced sequentially, in 2026.
A decision on which abstracts to accept will be made after our abstract submission deadline of 28th February 2027, and details of presenters will be added to this page.
Stan Papoulias. Keynote speaker for theme 1.
Research Fellow, London South Bank University, London, UK
Dr Stan Papoulias is Research Fellow at the Lived Experiences of Distress Research group, Department of Psychology, London South Bank University. Having led research projects at the Service User Research Enterprise (SURE) at King’s College London for many years, they have expertise in survivor-led, participatory and creative methodologies. Their research interests include the benefits and costs of embedding ‘lived experience’ in university and healthcare spaces, the labour of care, and the relationship between mental health, gender identity, sexuality and hostile environments. They see research as a political practice.
Ottar Ness. Keynote speaker for theme 3.
Professor of Counselling, Norwegian University of Science and Technology [Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet], Norway, UK)
Ottar Ness is Professor of Counselling at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and Co-Director of NTNU WellFare: Nordic Research Centre for Wellbeing and Social Sustainability. He is also Co-Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Well-being and Social Sustainability. His research focuses on mental health recovery, mattering, relational welfare, social justice, wellbeing and co-creation. Across research, teaching and collaboration with services and communities, he is particularly interested in how relationships, participation and fair social conditions can enable people to experience that they matter and contribute to lives and communities worth living in. Ottar has extensive experience of participatory and action-oriented research and works closely with people with lived experience, practitioners, municipalities and civil-society organisations.
Mike Slade. Closing keynote.
Professor of Recovery and Social Inclusion, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Mike is Professor of Mental Health Recovery and Social Inclusion at University of Nottingham. His main research interests are recovery-focused and outcome-focused mental health services, including Recovery Colleges, lived experience narratives, citizen science, wellbeing, needs assessment and developing measures, e.g. INSPIRE, Camberwell Assessment of Need, Threshold Assessment Grid. He has written over 400 academic articles and published 15 books, including Personal Recovery and Mental Illness (2009), Partnering for Recovery in Mental Health (2014), Positive Psychotherapy for Psychosis (2017), Wellbeing, Recovery and Mental Health (2017) and Camberwell Assessment of Need, 2nd edition (2020). His free booklets include Making Recovery a Reality (2008), REFOCUS: Promoting recovery in community mental health services, 2nd edition (2011), 100 Ways to Support Recovery, 2nd edition (2013), The empirical evidence about recovery (2015), The Business Case for Recovery (2017), Coaching Conversations for Recovery, 2nd edition (2023) and The potential of citizen mental health science (2024), all downloadable at researchintorecovery.com.