Professor Katy Shaw, Director of Cultural Partnerships at Northumbria University, has
been chosen to lead a £1.5 million project that will explore how culture can address
regional inequality and help level up the UK.
Professor
Shaw, who is a leading authority in fostering cultural partnerships across the
North, has been appointed Programme Director for Creative Communities by the
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and UKRI.
In
her new role, Professor Shaw will lead significant outward-facing research and
engagement work to identity
and profile examples of good partnership-working practice from across the UK’s regions
and develop the potential for arts and humanities in building creative
communities.
The
Creative Communities programme unites academic, cultural and third sector
partners to co-create a new evidence base that will inform future AHRC
place-based approaches to levelling up through culture and creativity.
Taking
a collaborative approach to culture, the new AHRC programme will examine the
capacity of place partnerships to strengthen cultural and creative opportunity.
It will explore how culture can help communities level up economically,
socially and in terms of health and wellbeing.
The
report builds on AHRC’s Boundless Creativity project - which examines
the role of innovation in shaping the recovery, renewal, and future growth of
the UK’s cultural and creative sector – which was published in
collaboration with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport in
July 2021.
Speaking about her new appointment, Professor Shaw said:
“Culture connects us like nothing else and the pandemic has reminded us that
place and participation matters now more than ever. The challenge is to
preserve what we have and create new culture, as well as ensuring that culture
is by all, and for all, going forwards.
“I am delighted that the AHRC has asked me to
deliver the Creative Communities programme from Northumbria University. As an
institution that is committed to developing the next generation of researchers,
we especially welcome the opportunity afforded by the award to offer career
development through three post-doctoral roles that will be funded with the award.
“The decision to base the programme here at
Northumbria is testament to our sector-leading reputation in partnership
working. Collaboration in teaching and learning, research and impact, knowledge
exchange and public engagement is a stylistic trait of how we take on the
challenges of tomorrow at Northumbria University. We are delighted that UKRI
and AHRC are joining us in realising that vision through the Creative
Communities programme. I look forward to working with a diverse range of
creatives, audiences and organisations across the regions and nations of our
United Kingdom in the months ahead.”
Professor
Andrew Wathey CBE, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive at Northumbria
University, said: “The creative communities programme is a vital
recognition of the role that the arts and humanities can play in enabling the
creative economy.
“Creativity
and Culture are not just important in building economic recovery, they are
vital for our national wellbeing. The pandemic, and the lockdowns we all
endured to combat it, have taught us again the true value of arts and culture
in our lives, and in defining what it means to be human.
“We
are delighted that Northumbria University can play an important role in this
project that will help shape future generations of creatives.”
Professor Shaw is a public
intellectual, presenter and author. As Director of Cultural Partnerships at
Northumbria University she connects a portfolio of galleries, museums, theatres
and writing development organisations to university teaching, research and
civic engagement.
She is the author of five monographs
about contemporary culture and has authored several national reports on the
creative industries, including the 2021 Case for Culture: An All-PartyParliamentary Group for Northern Culture inquiry report into post-covid
cultural recovery.
She is currently researcher in
residence on the Michael Sheen, Daily Mirror, New Statesman and Joseph Rowntree
project A Writing Chance, which aims to enhance routes into writing for
working class writers.
