Creative & Digital

What is the role of communities in stimulating creativity and innovation, particularly in the UK’s rapidly growing creative and digital economies?
 

Leapfrog – trans­form­ing pub­lic sec­tor con­sul­ta­tion by design

Principal Investigator: Dr Leon Cruickshank, Lancaster University
From 2015 to 2017

The Leapfrog project will be a close col­lab­o­ra­tion with pub­lic sec­tor and com­mu­nity part­ners to design and eval­u­ate new creative approaches to consultation. Read more

Imagine: Connecting Communities Through Research

Principal Investigator: Professor Kate Pahl (University of Sheffield)

The Imagine Project Working in partnership with local communities, we are exploring the social, historical, cultural and democratic context of civic engagement to imagine better futures and make them happen.   This five-year project, running from 2013 – 2017, brings together a range of different research projects working together across universities and communities. Read more

Community Hacking and other projects

Principal Investigator: Prof. Chris Speed

Community Hacking covers a series of three small AHRC Connected Communities grants that has involved working closely with partners and residents across Wester Hailes in Edinburgh. The three projects (Community web2.0:Creative Control through Hacking, Ladders to the Cloud, and Communities within spaces of flows) explore the design and development of physical and virtual networks. Read more

The university of the village: universities connecting with rural communities

Principal Investigator: Professor Michael Wilson
From 2011 to 2012

This pilot project explored new modes of delivery, enhanced through Next Generation Access Broadband, and was interested to redraw the relationship between universities and rural communities and grant access to university outreach services for those communities. The project in St Agnes resulted in delivering a short film course to the participants who collaboratively made a film about their village. Read more

Community hacking

Principal Investigator: Chris Speed (Edinburgh)
From 2010 to 2011

Based in the Edinburgh suburb of Wester Hailes, the team of academics, community organisations and local activists have been exploring the affordances of social media to construct ‘bonds’ and ‘bridges’ between and across existing people and groups. Read more

Rural connective

Principal Investigator: Professor Michael Wilson
From 2011 to 2012

Rural Connective gives attention to the increasing interest to the rural areas and their relation and access to the digital technologies especially in light of such programmes as roll out of superfast broadband in Cornwall. This initiative is specifically interested in growing and extracting cultural and creative capital in rural communities, and in critically investigating those processes. Read more

Year of Shakespeare

Principal Investigator: Dr Erin Sullivan (University of Birmingham)
2012

Year of Shakespeare is an innovative digital project documenting the 2012 World Shakespeare Festival, the biggest intercultural Shakespeare festival the world has ever seen. Read more

New connectivities: civil society, the ‘third sector’ and dilemmas for socially and economically sustainable healthcare delivery

Principal Investigator: Dr Ming Lim (University of Leicester)
2011

A scoping review and activities on the changing nature of connectivity’ within and between local communities. The overall purpose is to gain an understanding of the impacts of changing connectivities upon service delivery under fast-changing institutional conditions of marketisation. Read more

Understanding the role of ICT use in connectivity of minority communities in Wales

Principal Investigator: Dr Panayiota Tsatsou
2011

Researchers from three universities in Wales with specialisms in media, geography and policy research came together to conduct a systematic review of evidence in the interdisciplinary area of communication technologies, and connectivity of minority communities. Considering the Welsh context this work has aimed to enhance existing understanding of the role of new technologies in connectivity and inclusion of minority groups. Read more

Valuing community-led design

Principal Investigator: Dr Aikaterini Alexiou (Open University)
From 2012 to 2013

The ideas and practice of community-led design, participatory design or co-design have a long-standing tradition, especially in the context of urban design, planning and architecture . Read more