In a time of shifting powers and priorities across the UK, the Creative Communities programme is showing how culture can be a strategic tool for inclusive growth, community cohesion, and creativity for all. Based at Northumbria University in the North East, this ambitious £3.9 million investment by UKRI/AHRC is unlocking the power of co-creation to address some of our most pressing societal challenges.
At its heart, Creative Communities is about bringing together communities, researchers, policymakers, and cross-sector partners to co-create solutions that reflect the lived experiences of people across the UK. In a context of national and regional devolution, the programme is proving that co-creation and co-delivery is not only timely, it can be genuinely transformative.
Community Innovation Practitioner Awards (CIPs)
One of our flagship initiatives is the Community Innovation Practitioner Awards, which fund culture-led research in communities across all four nations of the UK. These research projects are not the usual parachuting in of temporary extractive engagement: they’re about building community-led, long-term social infrastructure.
In Huddersfield, our CIP is working with the West Yorkshire Combined Mayoral Authority and Kirklees Council to develop a cultural strategy rooted in cultural democracy and creative placemaking. In Liverpool, a 15-year partnership between Liverpool Philharmonic, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust is shaping institutional infrastructure that supports wellbeing and belonging.
In Wales, our CIP is collaborating with S4C, the national broadcaster, to pilot inclusive journalism that amplifies marginalised voices and connects culture, news, and community. In Birmingham, our CIP is working with the BBC to ensure the development of the Digbeth studios and the Peaky Blinders legacy is co-produced with local communities by focusing on skills, creativity, and cohesion.
Flipping Funding
But it’s not just what these projects do that is significant, it’s how they do it.
The Creative Communities programme has reimagined the innovation funding process. We have mandated cross-sector partnerships to break the academic silo. We have enabled video applications to let communities – not just academics – be heard and seen on bids. We have delivered rapid funding decisions, not year-long waits, by using a four-nation expert panel, not a group of assessors sat in London far away from where innovation takes place. Most importantly, we have provided research funding at 100% cost, removing the usual 20% match requirement that excludes many from engaging in R&D.
And instead of producing long reports no one ever really reads, each CIP produces a community case study, a specific policy paper for their devolved government or mayoralty and an episode of the Creative Communities podcast, profiling the voices and sounds of their places (series 2 is coming soon – tune in wherever you get your podcasts!).
UK Policy Labs
Our second signature investment are our UK Policy Labs – creatively facilitated live events that bring together devolved governments, communities, and policymakers to explore how culture can drive innovation in devolved contexts.
These Labs facilitate collaborative policy exchange, ensure inclusive representation and deliver policy recommendations grounded in lived experience. The resulting Policy Provocation Papers are open access on our website, forming a powerful message from the regions back to Westminster: it’s time for a new way of doing cultural policy in a devolved UK.
Why This Matters
In a landscape where devolution is reshaping power and funding, Creative Communities is flipping the script on how research is done and who gets to do it. It’s showing that culture is not just a nice-to-have, but a strategic tool for social renewal, inclusive innovation, and community cohesion.
This is a model that moves from competition to collaboration, from top-down policy to co-created solutions and from exclusion to creativity for all. As we look ahead, Creative Communities offers a blueprint for a fairer, more resilient UK – one where social capital is key to inclusive innovation, productivity and good growth that is truly by all, and for all.
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