Community Innovation Practitioners Accelerator Event 2026

As March began, the 2025-26 cohort of Community Innovation Practitioners joined the AHRC Creative Communities programme team and Advisory Board for two immersive days to explore how culture can support the UK Government devolution agenda and deliver pride in place.

The CIP awards represent a major investment in place-based innovation and cross-sector research partnerships across the devolved nations and regions of the UK. Each CIP is working in their devolved policy context to explore how co-created cultural innovation can enhance belonging, address regional inequality, deliver devolution and break down barriers to opportunity.

Working from the People’s History Museum, Manchester, day one saw the CIPs inhabit the spirit of the nation’s museum of democracy by delivering six unique ‘progress pitstops’ – interactive discussions looking at their communities’ stories ‘then, now and next’. Each CIP shared powerful examples of how their work is happening in practice:

• Scotland: In Dundee Eilish Victoria is activating existing civic assets through community ownership models and creative space assemblies rather than building new infrastructure
  
• West Yorkshire Combined Authority: Claire Tymon is delivering Culture Labs in high street units and urban rooms connecting cultural activity with public health, local economies, and community engagement
  
• Northern Ireland: Lisa Rea Currie is co-delivering with Mount Stewart (National Trust)– co-designing creative approaches to belonging while uncovering hidden histories and widening access to heritage spaces in Northern Ireland
  
• Greater Manchester Combined Authority: In GMCA’s Town of Culture, Rochdale, Ruth Flanagan leads banner-making and textile projects reconnecting communities with co-operative heritage and civic identity
  
• West Midlands Combined Authority: Sara Hassan is exploring inclusive approaches to creative regeneration that balance economic growth with social value with the BBC in Digbeth

• Wales: In Blaenau Ffestiniog Shirish Kulkarni leads participatory mapping and community-led events designed around everyday needs, building trust and strengthening local voice in the Welsh Valleys with S4C

An afternoon workshop focused on Creative Approaches to UK Government Missions, to guide the CIPs through creative approaches to engaging with people, place, and power dynamics and working out their potential role in responding to the UK Government Missions from their devolved places.

Day two opened with a speed networking session between the CIPs and the Creative Communities Advisory Board. This created space for direct exchange between innovation practitioners in communities and those shaping UK and devolved policy. Conversations focused on how place-based cultural innovation can contribute to government missions around devolution, local empowerment, belonging, and civic participation.

Our CIP awards are working in partnerships between universities, mayoral authorities, cultural organisations and creative industries to test new ways of unlocking inclusive growth through culture and connecting culture to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport CI Sector Vision. Across these awards, cross-sector partners are engaging in place-based research that feeds directly into delivery of devolution, inclusive growth and strengthening pride in place across the UK.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Creative Communities programme is strengthening the capacity of communities to shape cultural, social, and economic growth in devolved regions and nations.

The Community Innovation Practitioners will each launch a policy paper, case study and episode in the Creative Communities podcast series in autumn 2026. You can read findings from the 2023-24 cohort online now and the Creative Communities podcast.