Phase 1 Partnerships: Knowledge Exchange Projects
In Phase 1 (2021-2023), we worked with nine Knowledge Exchange projects across the UK, designed to improve access to arts and humanities research expertise with a view to informing and supporting local regeneration.
Art is Everywhere
Led by Dr Marisa de Andrade at The University of Edinburgh.
This project will ensure sustained access to the arts for all ages in North Lanarkshire and use it to help tackle:
- education
- health
- socio-economic inequalities.
With a strong focus on community engagement and collaboration across sectors, the project will bring together key stakeholders and community members.
This collaborative approach will support community led initiatives which cut across:
- early year’s education
- healthy ageing
- community safety and social justice
- health and wellbeing.
It will also help North Lanarkshire Council co-produce a long-term sustainable arts strategy which will support more integrated and effective decision making which cuts across sectors to address issues and inequalities.
City of caves: regenerating the heart of Nottingham through ‘hidden heritage’
Led by Dr Christopher King at University of Nottingham.
City of caves will help put Nottingham’s heritage at the centre of a major redevelopment of the important Broadmarsh site.
It will ensure residents and visitors are able to benefit from it for years to come.
Much of Nottingham’s unique historical landscape is often hidden, underground, or unknown.
This includes over 870 caves that date back to at least medieval times and are still used for a variety of commercial, community and private functions.
Many of these caves, and other parts of the city’s heritage, can be found on the Broadmarsh site.
This project will draw together research to inform Nottingham City Council’s plans for developing the site, including a proposed new Cave Heritage Centre.
City change through culture
Led by Professor Nick Henry at Coventry University.
Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 is a year-long programme ending in May 2022 designed to increase cultural participation in the city region and deliver social, economic, and environmental benefits.
A substantial range of innovative research and evaluation is taking place within this programme to evaluate benefits and impacts.
This project will support the exchange and dissemination of this research material and demonstrate whether Coventry City of Culture 2021 has made a (lasting) difference to the city.
This project will work with the Coventry City Council insight team to inform future strategy and planning within the council.
It will support the mid-term 2022 refresh of the Coventry cultural strategy and the West Midlands Combined Authority plan for growth clusters.
In unison with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, learning will also be shared with places who have bid for UK City of Culture 2025 to amplify the benefits of culture-led placemaking.
Creative peninsula
Led by Professor Thomas Trevor at University of Exeter
Creative Peninsula focuses on increasing access and exchange between urban and rural communities in Devon and Cornwall, celebrating the region’s distinctive landscape and Atlantic coastline, whilst investigating its complex social histories, through community-engaged arts programming and cultural enquiry.
Working closely with local authorities, museums and arts organisations, Creative Peninsula aims to establish a network of partners across Devon and Cornwall, to help influence policy and to co-create a platform with communities for re-telling the ‘stories of place’, working to overcome barriers to social inclusion, wellbeing, and environmental sustainability.
It builds upon the work of the Creative Arc knowledge sharing initiative developed in partnership by Exeter City Council, the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and the University of Exeter whilst also extending the AHRC-funded project, Outside the Box, which asked how open-air performance might reconnect people with the environment following the peak of the Covid pandemic.
As part of this process of network-building, and re-telling the stories of place, partnerships have developed around several thematic strands of the Creative Peninsula programme, e.g., Outdoor Cultures, Queer Peninsula, Atlantica/Black Atlantic, Intergenerational Ruralities, A Parliament of Waters, Digital Coast, etc. These themes will form the basis for the Creative Peninsula summit, taking place in November at the Eden Project.
The programme also includes three new artist-led community participation projects (Who Do You Think Should Save Us?, led by Mason Surman Winters with the RNLI and sea swimmers on Exmouth Beach; Field Day, a site-specific performance by Small Acts created in collaboration with Falmouth Food Cooperative’s 10-acre Loveland community farm; and Salmon Run, a community relay run of 50 miles, following the migration route of the Atlantic Salmon from sea through the city of Exeter to their spawning ground on Exmoor, devised by Tidelines in partnership with Creative Arc)
Cross-pollination: growing cross-sector design collaboration in placemaking
Led by Dr Katerina Alexiou at Open University.
Cross-pollination is a creative approach for bringing people together to share resources and knowledge to design initiatives.
Set up as a collaboration between the Open University and The Glass-House Community Led Design, and building on the work of a previous AHRC funded project, this project will train representatives from three partners based in Wales, Scotland, and England, in the approach.
The project team will then support them in using the approach to develop partnerships and initiatives to address place-making in their local areas.
The project will help these local partners to plan and deliver local impacts.
From support for building the creative industries in Merthyr Tydfil, to improving cross sector collaboration in Glasgow and enhancing the environment in Clapham Junction.
Reflections and learning from the experiences of the local partners will also be disseminated through:
- a documentary film
- the creation of a cascading box filled with resources to support others to use the approach.
Design innovation and cultural resonances (resonance): place-based collaboration
Led by Professor Lynn-Sayers McHattie at Glasgow School of Art.
Building on the work of previous AHRC funded projects, Resonance will draw together creative economy practitioners and creative and cultural organisations in a series of productive civic exchanges.
The exchanges will be centred upon the capturing, amplifying and sharing of nuanced local knowledge and cultural assets to inform decision-making.
In doing so Resonance will develop the capability, capacity, and collaborations needed to ensure the cultural knowledge of local stakeholders and communities can inform government decision making.
The project will work with three partners in different communities in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
It will help each community to discuss place, landscapes, and cultural assets, and how their local cultural heritage could be used for future development plans.
Feeling towns: the role of place and identity in governance and local policy
Led by Professor Nicky Marsh at University of Southampton.
Feeling towns will help local and national government, as well as national bodies such as Historic England, to create, put in place, and evaluate strategies for civic pride.
Often seen as an important part of local regeneration, the idea of pride and place has become an important aspect included in many initiatives and funds to support development and regeneration.
Yet many local authorities lack access to relevant expertise or capacity to respond to these.
This project will help them bridge that gap, bringing the research and building the capacity needed to enable them to respond.
At the same time, it will work with Historic England to develop and test new approaches to evaluation which will support their High Street Heritage Action Zone initiative.
People, heritage and place: using heritage to enhance community and wellbeing in Saltaire, Bradford
Led by Professor Andrew Wilson at University of Bradford.
This project will support management and development of the Saltaire World Heritage Site by:
- encouraging public engagement with planning for the site
- stimulating tourism in the area
- enhancing education about the site.
This will be achieved through closely collaborating with local schools, businesses, and residents to develop a digital 3D representation of Saltaire.
Work developing the model will increase knowledge of the site and allow people in the city to develop their skills.
This will include helping them to record the current condition of some elements of the site and feed into planning and development.
The model will be linked to the existing virtual Bradford model to increase visibility of the site within the city and for visitors to the city.
It will also be used to support the development of a tourist app for the site, which will help improve information available to visitors.
Roots and futures: scaling up and sustaining co-produced, place-based heritage with underserved communities in heritage
Led by Dr Elizabeth Craig-Atkins at The University of Sheffield.
Roots and futures will enable, empower, and embed the voices of diverse communities more explicitly in Sheffield’s current heritage strategy in ways which will:
- enhance belonging, wellbeing and inclusion
- address the needs of strategy-makers.
The project builds on existing partnerships with Pakistani, Yemeni, and Somali communities to realise the needs of these communities via new partnerships with regional decision makers.
The work of the project will provide an example that can be shared with other cities to support similar approaches.