Academic-publication

Co-Constructing Research: A Critical Literature Review

This literature review was written as part of the AHRC funded Connected Communities project: CoDesign: Leaning Reflections. Read more

Creating Living Knowledge Report

This research provides important lessons about how to fund, conduct and sustain high quality research collaborations between academics and civil society in the arts, humanities and social sciences. These lessons have important implications for the research community – in particular those involved in funding, policy making and universities. Read more

Project › Researching in Public: Learning and Legacy in the Connected Communities Programme

Researching young people’s orientations to the future: the methodological challenges of using arts practice

Visual and arts-based methods are now widely used in the social sciences. In youth research they are considered to promote engagement and empowerment. This article contributes to debates on the challenges of using arts-based methods in research with young people. Read more

Activating the archive: rethinking the role of traditional archives for local activist projects

This article explores the way archival material has the potential to become a core component of activism, through an evaluation of an AHRC-funded collaborative research project on the histories and futures of local food in Liverpool. Read more

Project › Memories of ‘Mr Seel’s Garden’: Engaging with historic and future food systems in Liverpool

Remaking society

In this pilot demonstrator project, four community arts and media organisations committed to engagement with autonomous and dynamic communities drew on the creativity of local people. Together they either addressed issues, solved problems or generated alternatives – sometimes all three. Read more

Performing Abergavenny: creating a connected community beyond divisions of class, locality and history

How can we use the arts and humanities to support community cohesion in Abergavenny? This was the question that a group of Abergavenny citizens and the researchers asked. This project was jointly designed, created and produced by researchers and townspeople in partnership with town and county councils and a number of community groups. Read more

Project › Performing Abergavenny: creating a connected community beyond divisions of class, locality and history

Community as micro-sociality and the new localism agenda

The project explored the making of community through small everyday acts of communication and the sharing of affect or feeling. Read more

Project › Community as micro-sociality and the new localism agenda

University of the Village

University of the Village interrogated the barriers facing rural communities in accessing university outreach programmes. Read more

Project › The university of the village: universities connecting with rural communities

Stimulating Participation in the Informal Creative Economy

SPICE (Stimulating Participation in the Informal Creative Economy) investigated the informal creative economies that grow up around cultural heritage in England. Read more

Harnessing Creative Clusters to Civil Society and the Digital Economy

This project sought to understand the creative and activist practices of issue-based clusters, and to explore the ways in which these practices might be helped or hindered by digital technologies. Read more