February it still may be but Spring is most definitely in the air.
As many of our readers will know, we formally launched NCACE to an online audience of almost 300 people at the start of February with our event Knowledge Conversations: The Power of Collaborative Action. Enormous thanks to all of you who took the time to join us. Our recording is now live so do tune in if you’ve not yet had a chance to listen.
Over the last couple of months we have been busy developing our Spring Programme with a raft of brand new activities and networking opportunities, designed to encourage knowledge sharing, networking and new communities of practice between universities and the arts. In March and April we’re hosting the following workshops:
NCACE: What we’re doing and how to get involved. March 9th and 13th April
Knowledge Impacts Network Launch (KIN) - 11th March
Evidence Café - 16th March
NCACE Leadership Workshop - 1st April
The National Centre for Academic and Cultural Exchange (NCACE), a new four year initiative funded by Research England. It is led by TCCE with regional hub partners including: Bath Spa University, Birmingham City University, Manchester Metropolitan University and Northumbria University.
Our purpose is to facilitate and support capacity for Knowledge Exchange, in its widest sense, between Higher Education and the arts and cultural sector across the country with a particular focus on evidencing and showcasing the social, cultural, environmental, as well as the economic, impacts of such activities.
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NCACE: What we’re doing and how to get involved
Tuesday 9 March, 2pm - Online
The aim of these informal workshops is to outline NCACE’s four key areas of activities and highlight ways in which you may wish to get involved as we grow the centre’s activities over the coming years.
Knowledge Impacts Network (KIN) Launch
Thursday 11 March, 3pm - Online
KIN is our new network for Knowledge Exchange engaged researchers, Knowledge Exchange professionals working with the arts and cultural sector, as well as arts and cultural sector professionals. It is being conceived as a space to share knowledge, experience and successes, hear how colleagues are approaching challenges, swap industry intelligence and build new networks. Our first meeting will focus on building online communities of collaboration and experimentation and will feature guest speakers: Sean Michael Morris of University of Colorado, co-founder of the Digital Pedagogy Lab, Maureen Salmon and Director of Digital Development at Royal Shakespeare Company Sarah Ellis.
NCACE Evidence Café Launch
Tuesday 16 March, 2pm - Online
We are launching our Evidence café as a community of practice space to evolve our Evidence Hub. Over the course of the next few years, the Evidence Hub will become NCACE’s open resource centre and will feature publications and other materials that document the scale, extent, nature, drivers of knowledge exchange collaborations between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the arts and cultural sector. The Evidence Café invites people from HE, the arts and cultural sectors and wider policy spheres that are interested in this aspect of our work to join us. Each meeting will have a different theme and in this session we’ll be looking at evidence on relations between HE and the arts gathered from the last REF data as well as the recent KEF exercise and what this is telling us about the nature and state of HEI/Arts and Culture sector collaboration, with presentations from Dr. Federica Rossi (NCACE Co-Investigator, Evidence and Impacts) and Dr. Hamish McAlpine (Research England).
NCACE Leadership Workshop in collaboration with Clore Leadership Programme
Thursday 1 April, 2pm - Online
Our first Leadership Workshop, delivered in collaboration with the Clore Leadership Programme, with an opening reflection by Professor Carole-Anne Upton. The workshop will offer 2 facilitated sessions, one on leading from within your organisation – focusing on influencing internally within an organisation, holding space and challenging perceptions of value, and the second on leading outwards – developing professional networks, influencing and creating partnerships with impact.
Partner Events
Meeting in the Middle: problematising placemaking from the ground up
Thursday 25 February, 3pm - Online
The institute and business transformations research centre at Manchester Metropolitan University are co-hosting a round table event exploring the topic of 'placemaking' following the publication of the routledge handbook of placemaking earlier this year. It is often argued that placemaking happens either from within a community, a bottom-up approach; or, imposed at a state or city level. Yet, placemaking is messy and problematic. This seminar will explore what happens in ‘the middle’, responding to the question ‘where does placemaking happen?’
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This month's written blogs are from NCACE Sounding Board members Professor Bambo Soyinka, Professor of Story at Bath Spa University and Director, Paper Nations and Clayton Shaw, Programme Manager, Birmingham City University, STEAMhouse.
Part One: Are Citizens the True Innovators of Knowledge?
We are living through a period of mass crisis. The issues we face predate the pandemic, but have only been brought into sharper focus by Covid-19. In the light of these issues, at the recent launch for the National Centre for Cultural and Academic Exchange, I posed the question: ‘are our current models for research and knowledge exchange up to the job?’ This blog post is the first of two exploring alternative models for collaborative academic research.
STEAMy Principles
Five STEAMy principles for fulfilling knowledge exchange activities
In 2018 STEAMhouse opened its doors to a community of businesses, entrepreneurs, creatives and artists, and the academic world. Unsurprisingly there was great interest from many who saw the value in collaborating not only with the University, but also with people from a range of disciplines, and businesses spanning an array of sectors. Along the way we’ve had the opportunity to work with some brilliant minds and some fascinating projects. Collectively we have gained new insights to what we believe makes an essential STEAM collaboration, starting with five basic principles.
We are keen to hear about your collaborative projects or related works and invite you to contribute to our blog. You can read our current blog posts on our website and can access the NCACE Blog Guidelines here. For further information contact Noshin Sultan on noshin@tcce.co.uk.
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Given the nature of our work, NCACE is likely to be of interest and relevance to those within Higher Education (HE) research and knowledge exchange, as well as those working in the arts and cultural sector. We are also very happy to hear from other interested individuals and organisations who may be interested in our work. There is more information on how to get involved on our website.
In the meantime you can follow us on Twitter @CultureImpacts and LinkedIn for the latest NCACE news and announcements. For general enquiries, get in touch with Noshin Sultan noshin@tcce.co.uk.
We thank you for your readership and look forward to working with you.
Evelyn Wilson (Co-Director, NCACE) and Noshin Sultan (Project and Partnerships Manager, NCACE)
Image: © Bill Leslie, Leap then Look: An NCACE micro-commission 2020.
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