Connect, Explore, Share

Activting Creativity in UK Universities took place betweeen 17-18June 2026. It brought together 40+ delegates from 14 different UK institutions and cultural organisations to explore the question How can creative process and artist-led practice help shape a better future for UK Universities?

Designed to support those working at the intersection of arts, creative process, and HE, this intimate and focused gathering, functioned simultaneously as a sector-wide networking opportunity, a space for collective future-making, and a structured moment for peer-led professional development. Its aim was to help us strengthen our capacity to navigate and shape what needs to come next while doing so with creativity, care, and intention.

An inspiring two days

On day one, delegates were welcomed by the Arts and Culture team alongside Katie Ethrington and Simon Persighetti from Small Acts with their playful networking game Faceback. Delegates had their faces transformed into badges, creating a unique opportunity for connection and interaction. Each person selected a badge featuring someone else’s face and was given the mission of finding that individual and returning their face to them. This simple activity sparked a chain of unexpected face-to-face meetings that unfolded throughout the event, bringing together people who may not have otherwise met.

We were also treated to four micro-presentations which explore what has helped shape arts and culture work within higher education institutions.

Professor John Strachan, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise at Bath Spa University), talked through history of arts at Bath from the 1950s right through to their 2035 Strategy focused on the Professionally Creative University for the Future.

He was followed by Leanna Hammacott, Head of Cultural Programming at Kings College London, which shared more about her role delivering a public facing programme of cultural events and exhibitions, across King's and the Strand Cultural Quarter, showcasing unique and interdisciplinary collaborations between academics, researchers, students, artists and cultural partners.

Mary Robson, Senior Creative Facilitator at Durham University gave us a glimpse into the 'ripple effects' of creative facilitation at the Institute of Medical Humanities at Durham and how it had developed.

And, Will Hunter, Social Researcher and Creative Producer from the University of Bristol, spoke about his Creative Bureau, in which he touched on University's complex relationship with community and creativity.

The presentations prompted a lively panel discussion, with speakers and delegates reflecting on the common themes that had emerged across the different institutional contexts. These themes included the opportunities and challenges around embedding creativity within higher education and they directly helped shape a series of questions that would carry into the afternoon session with artist Hannah Mumby and her Co-Production Oracle Cards.

Delegates were split into groups and asked to use the cards to reflect and respond to the past, present and future contexts of one of the following questions:

• How do we understand creativity's role in research beyond shiny outputs?
• Who gets to tell the story of what a university is?
• How can we pilot/test creative programmes and courses that take risks and break new ground?
• What is stopping us taking creativity to places in the institution it has never seen before?
• How should we invite creatives into universities to shape knowledge and practice?
• How do we capture and build on the successes in embedding creativity and make sure these don't get lost?
• How can we join forces to make to make more linked-up relationships between universities that champion creativity?

At the end of the exercise each table was asked to share what three statements in relation to each question:

• From the PAST we need to remember...
• From the PRESENT we can notice...
• In the FUTURE we will commit to...

Evening Feast and Music from Jim Causley

Rounding off day one was a vegetarian feast and music from renowned Devon based folk singer/songwriter Jim Causley.

Day Two

Practical Lab Sessions

Day two started with a series of practical lab sessions. Delegates were asked to choose from two of the following.

SESSION 1: Getting your hands dirty: queer making as knowledge production in universities, with artist Linda Stupart.
Arts and Culture 2026 Creative Fellow Linda Stupart took delegates to a quiet corner of the Reed Hall Pond area on the campus to craft using natural clay found there and explore creativity in teaching through queer making.

SESSION 2: Evaluating the Unevaluable: experiencing non‑traditionally submitted creative outputs through the REF lens, with Dr Ola Thomson and Dr Ben Thomas (Hidden REF Team).
This session invited participants to step into the role of REF evaluators, examining a not traditionally submitted research output (NTO) that had previously been submitted to the REF. Working with current REF criteria and the evolving landscape for creative outputs in REF29, participants collaboratively assessed the work before reflecting on the assumptions and values that shaped evaluative judgement. It explored how creative and artist-led practices were recognised and supported within universities and how we might support the submission of more creative NTOs in REF29.

SESSION 3: Creative Pedagogy in Higher Education: practice and potential, with Dr Kerry Chappell, Professor of Education and Co-leader of Centre for Research in Transdisciplinary Education.
This lab explored the relationship between creativity and the arts in HEIs. It considered how the two were conceptualised in our education and related research practices, and how we facilitated them. Grounded in thinking from UoE’s School of Education’s Creativity in Education module, Kerry raised questions for debate about how and why we positioned and worked with creativity and the arts in our HEI cultures.

SESSION 4: Being moved but not harmed: ethics of care in encounters with arts-based practices, with Professor Nicola Shaughnessy (University of Kent) and Professor Siobhan Hugh-Jones (University of Leeds).
In this participatory lab, delegates explored what it meant to care for audiences when creative work was intentionally designed to move them. Drawing on concepts such as psychological safety, relational care, and the ethics of consent, we engaged in a critical, collective enquiry into how ‘safe space’ could be created within arts-based practices without diminishing the transformative and affective power of the arts.

The Long Table

Following the practical lab sessions, delegates were invited to a long table event.

Inspired by Lois Weaver’s Long Table format, the event offered an alternative to conventional panel discussions, moving away from fixed speaker and audience roles towards a more open and participatory structure. Participants were invited to gather around the table and contribute in different ways—as speakers, listeners and note takers—with these roles intentionally overlapping and remaining fluid.

The format created an open space for exchange, allowing participants to listen, contribute, reflect and respond to one another. Rather than focusing on a single presentation or debate, the session encouraged a collective conversation in which different perspectives could sit alongside one another.

Some of the questions answered were:

• Where are the power imbalances?

• What do you need to feed to ensure creative research collaborations thrive?

• What resources are being exchanged in a creative research collaboration?

• Process or Product?

Poetry Session

To close the two-days we invited poet Ella Frears to the campus to run a poetry plenary session with delegates to bring together thoughts, reflections and learning from the two days. Inspired by this session, Ella is currently pulling together an audio poem about the event which will be shared in the coming months.