29.09.25
The Creative Communities programme, funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and led by Northumbria University, has extended its signature award, the Community Innovation Practitioner (CIP) Awards, for a new 2025-26 cohort. This represents an investment of nearly £500,000 to catalyse place-based innovation across all 4 nations of the UK research ecosystem.
The AHRC Creative Communities programme examines the role of culture and devolution in unlocking cross sector co-creation and place-based innovation across all 4 nations of the UK.
We are delighted to announce that in Dundee, AHRC Creative Communities will enable a year-long joint research project between Creative Dundee and the University of Dundee, led by Community Innovation Practitioner Eilish Victoria. The project will focus on researching and developing new models of cross-sector collaborations and policies necessary to support long-term creative space in Dundee and make vacant space more accessible to creative communities.
Eilish will build on her experiences initiating the Fair Growing Green project and Hapworks, which brought together creative practitioners, creative businesses, existing creative spaces and grassroots organisations to better understand what spaces are needed, the current challenges around accessing space, and to develop a collective vision for the future of creative space in the city. Between February 2024 and June 2025, Creative Dundee’s pilot project Hapworks_00 occupied a vacant unit at 7 Castle Street to explore some of these ideas and demonstrate the role that creative spaces and communities could play in the regeneration of Dundee City Centre.
Like other community rooted creative spaces in the city, Hapworks_00 demonstrated the clear need and demand for space; however the story is all too common that the constraints of temporary spaces often prove challenging, without significant changes being made to the wider system they are part of.
In June 2025, we released Foundations for Growth: Creative Space Infrastructure in Dundee, a report which shared the learnings and proposed next steps for the city, recognising the need for community wealth building approaches and city-wide collaboration – this new project will enable these next steps to be explored and further tested.
With the support of AHRC Creative Communities, we are excited to enter this new phase with the University of Dundee, who have been a key partner in establishing key cultural spaces such as Dundee Contemporary Arts and V&A Dundee. Most recently, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design’s Space Task Force research group has been considering the spaces necessary for early career creative practitioners to make work and collaborate in the city, to encourage graduate retention and support a healthy creative economy.
Working together we will establish a Creative Space Assembly to convene the creative sector, property sector and city partners, identifying the cross-sector partnerships and policies required to support an ecosystem of long-term creative spaces. The actions identified in these Assemblies will be explored at a series of events and workshops. The focus will be sharing, co-designing and developing new approaches to accessing and animating vacant space, negotiating short-term and long-term tenancies, and the wider infrastructure needed to support creative communities.
The practical outcomes of both the assemblies and workshops will inform a case study and policy paper which will address the community wealth building benefits of spaces for creative practitioners to work and collaborate, businesses to grow, and communities to collectively imagine and act. Using Dundee as a case study, we will develop policy recommendations which can be implemented at a national and local level to support creative communities across Scotland to activate local assets and create new opportunities for local people.
We look forward to inviting Dundee residents and creative communities to join this co-design process, and will be sharing more insights into Eilish’s work in the coming months – follow along online to keep up-to-date with the project as it progresses.
AHRC Creative Communities is a £3.9m major research programme based in Northumbria University in Newcastle. It builds a new evidence base on how cultural devolution can enhance belonging, address regional inequality, deliver devolution and break down barriers to opportunity for communities in devolved settings across all four nations of the UK.
The CIPs will generate vital new knowledge about co-creation and the unique role played by their communities and partnerships in growth through new research, development and innovation (RD&I).
Each CIP will produce a case study, policy paper and an episode of the Creative Communities podcast series to share learning from their community and cultural partners. Together, the CIPs will form a Community of Practice network with the aim of fostering new relationships and sharing innovative practice.
Funding has been awarded to six new CIPs across a spectrum of projects that represent the rich cross-sector community research and inclusive innovation that is catalysing growth in all 4 nations of the UK.
For more information you can also visit the Creative Communities website.
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