In September, GuildHE launched a report which called on the sector to address the balance for small and specialist institutions receiving funding to support their knowledge exchange activities, with these activities being transformative for institutions’ approach to their communities, to student engagement, and in the impact they could make in meeting ‘growth ambitions across the whole country’.
As Student Hubs was a partner of Leeds Conservatoire in how they used their one-off knowledge exchange funding across 2021-22 and 2022-23 through our One Community Forum model, we have seen first-hand the value that this funding and the subsequent partnership opportunities can bring. We want to share more about what this funding enabled for Leeds Conservatoire, particularly how artistic citizenship could shape their local activities and practise in this area, and how the learnings from this work are relevant for the whole sector.
From 16 to 17 June 2022, Leeds Conservatoire hosted a conference titled Artistic Citizenship Forum: Co-Creating a Flexible Definition. Dr Jacob Thompson-Bell’s report from the conference and research was released in February 2023, and there are a range of recommendations provided for the sector around how artistic citizenship could be the bridge for sustained and engaging civic activities which reach students, communities, and the creative industries. We participated in the Artistic Citizenship Forum as well as holding our own One Community Forum in 2022.
