Background Information about the partnership

Boosting Resilience was conceived and delivered by City University of London, TCCE and Manchester Metropolitan University. This partnership has extensive knowledge, networks and research expertise of, in and with the arts and cultural sectors.

City, University of London

City, University of London was founded in 1894 and contributes significantly to the capital's academic, cultural and business life. An integral part of City, University of London, Sir John Cass Business School is among the global elite of business schools, consistently ranked amongst the best business schools and programmes in the world. The Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice is a research centre within the Cass Business School. It was founded in 2008 as a cross-school venture to undertake interdisciplinary research, teaching and knowledge transfer in creativity and innovation.

Dr Sara Jones, Course Director, Masters in Innovation, Creativity and Leadership in the Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice at City, University of London is leading and co-ordinating the overall management and delivery of the Boosting Resilience Programme with close strategic input, research and support from Professor Clive Holtham, Dr Melissa Wong and Dr Amanda Brown across the programme.

The Culture Capital Exchange (TCCE)

TCCE (The Culture Capital Exchange) was originally established as LCACE in 2005 with HEFCE HEIF funds and was the first network to focus specifically on fostering connections between Higher Education and the arts, cultural and creative sectors. It continues to pioneer developments in this field, operating a membership scheme with representation from small specialist arts institutes, Russell Group members and post-92 universities. In the last five years we have worked on the development and delivery of several ground-breaking collaborative research projects including Creativeworks London and the National Academics and Creative Exchange (The Exchange).

Evelyn Wilson and Suzie Leighton, Founders and Directors of TCCE roles on Boosting Resilience include: launching the programme, co-curating residentials and final conference/showcasing activities as well as the leading the programme’s dissemination work. Giorgia Cacciatore is providing website and communication support.

Manchester Metropolitan University

The Centre for Enterprise at The Manchester Metropolitan University (CfE) is the university’s small firm and entrepreneurship centre of excellence, and has an active database of approx. 2,000 small firms, recently appointing 10 SME Visiting Entrepreneurs to support understanding of SME needs. The CfE is currently running 3 large ERDF projects, circa £6M, focusing on supporting 400 entrepreneurs and SMEs in all sectors to grow and innovate. It has a 12 year track record of working with and researching SME growth, resilience and entrepreneurship. The 10,000 Small Businesses Programme, funded by Goldman Sachs, was offered by only four business schools in the UK including the Centre for Enterprise at MMU. Manchester Metropolitan’s key roles include: work closely with City and TCCE to ensure the design and delivery of the programme and lead on the programme evaluation.

Professor Sue Baines, Dr Tamara McNeill and Dr Thanasis Spyriadis are leading on the Evaluation of the programme with close strategic input, teaching and support from Claire Pattison and Alison Brooker.

Together

Together the three organisations have a history of interconnections and relationships spanning back over a decade. Clive has worked for several years with Dr Claire Hamshire Research Institute for Health and Social Change at MMU and joined the Playful Learning conference and community there in 2016. Evelyn and Suzie have been working closely with Sara and Clive over the last six years through Creativeworks London and on TCCE projects including our inaugural conference at The British Library in 2012. Finally, Ian Gibbs, formerly at MMU and now at City, brought MMU together with City and TCCE. Ian worked with Suzie and Evelyn in the early days of TCCE when he was at Goldsmiths.

The Arts Council's Building Resilience Fund

This fund, awarded to four external organisations, aims to increase the resilience of up to 100 cultural organisations, providing learning, insight, expertise, skills development and resources that can be shared and used more widely to increase resilience across the sector. Starting in September 2017, each strand of the programme worked with up to 25 organisations, exploring, piloting and delivering different approaches to long-term sustainability.

Strands

Our strand is Boosting Resilience: Survival Skills for the New Normal. Please click here for further information on the other three strands.