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“Reserve your right to think, and your right to be wrong” says Professor Cathia Jenainati at inaugural lecture

University of Gloucestershire celebrated the inaugural lecture of Professor Cathia Jenainati, Professor of Gender and Leadership and Head of the School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences, with an evening reflecting on a distinguished international career shaped by pedagogic innovation, interdisciplinary thinking and global collaboration. 

Held at the University’s Oxstalls Campus, the lecture explored how research can be transformed into teaching practice, drawing on Professor Jenainati’s work across problem-based learning, curriculum decolonisation, transnational education, education for sustainable development and research supervision. 

Throughout the lecture, Professor Jenainati reflected on a career defined by a proudly transdisciplinary approach. Holding degrees in both biology and literature, she spoke about challenging the siloed structures often associated with traditional western higher education, instead championing models of learning that connect disciplines, cultures and lived experience. 

Among the milestones highlighted during the evening were the publication of her acclaimed book Introducing Feminism in 2007, which was later translated into 25 languages. Reviewing the book, The Guardian said: “Introducing Feminism’s gift has been to raise the précis to an artform.” 

Professor Jenainati also reflected on her role in establishing the Warwick-Monash Alliance in 2012, a major international partnership between the University of Warwick and Monash University in Australia, and on creating the Warwick Database of Arabic Resources (DAR), a pioneering digital archive supporting comparative literature and language learning through translated interviews, literary mapping and transliteration tools. 

Her commitment to interdisciplinary and globally engaged education was further demonstrated through the founding of the Global Sustainable Development unit at Warwick and the establishment of its associated research institute. She also founded Warwick’s Liberal Arts programme, built around the principles of social justice, gender equity and sustainability. 

That work has continued at University of Gloucestershire, where Professor Jenainati has helped shape the University’s growing focus on inclusion, innovation and global citizenship. She is the executive lead supporting UoG’s newly launched MSc Sustainable Global Futures programme in partnership with UNITAR. 

During the lecture, Professor Jenainati reflected on John Stuart Mill’s timeless assertion that we must protect our individuality and exercise freedom of thought if we are to priortise human endeavour over machine thinking. To this end, she paraphrased Hypatia’s well known mantra “Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all” and proclaimed: “I reserve the right to be wrong.” She also paid tribute to colleagues, collaborators, friends and family members across the world who had supported her throughout her journey.  

Professor Jenainati has received a number of accolades throughout her career, including the Butterworth Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence in 2002, and Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence in both 2005 and 2012 as well an Inspirational Leadership Award 2016. She joined University of Gloucestershire in 2023. 

University of Gloucestershire will be hosting an inaugural lecture for Professor Matt Reed, Head of Research, at Park Campus on 9 July 2026. Click here to find out more.