About this session
In this session we will look back on Incubating Civic Leadership, a project exploring civic leadership and how different actors can be brought together to co-design ideas, innovations and actions that push boundaries and address challenges at a local and global level.
This knowledge exchange project brought together groups and organisations across sectors and of varied scale in London and Bristol. Through both online and in-person activities, we shared learning and ideas and experimented together through simple interactive urban activities aimed at galvanising people to improve their local places.
Areas of Exploration
Themes we will explore in this session include:
- Exploring the conditions for citizens to to be active and confident placemakers and changemakers
- The power of knowledge exchange opportunities across sectors, disciplines, communities and different scales of organisations
- Prototyping activities to animate places and activate people
- Using the Cross-pollination approach as an online space for connection and exchange
You might like to watch this short film capturing the Incubating Civic Leadership project or have a look at the project website before you join the session, as each offers a good overview of the project. However, this is entirely optional. Do also feel free to just turn up and find out more.
Click on this link to register for your free place.
About Research Rooms
The Research Rooms series is a collaboration between national charity The Glass-House Community Led Design and The Open University’s Design Group. These events share learning, resources and anecdotes from the many research projects we have done together.
Research Rooms are informal online spaces for discussion with members of the research team from academia, practice and communities. Those attending can learn about the projects, their outputs and outcomes and the influence they have had on those involved. There will also be space to share your own experience and explorations of the project themes.
More about Incubating Civic Leadership
Incubating Civic Leadership (ICL) was a knowledge exchange project, funded through Research England’s Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) allocation to the Open University. ICL was a collaboration between The Open University, The Glass-House Community Led Design and Knowle West Media Centre. The aim of the project was to develop and test a model for the operation of a Civic Leadership Incubator to help inform, inspire, and catalyse people and organisations to work together and to convert ideas and conversations into collaborative, interdisciplinary and cross-sector projects.
As part of project activities, the ICL team worked with other partners in two pilot local projects: London Borough of Redbridge and Muslimah Sports Association in East London, and the Filwood Broadway Working Group of the Knowle West Alliance in Bristol.
If you would like to explore the project before the Research Room session, there are plenty of resources available:
- Incubating Civic Leadership project website
- Film capturing the Incubating Civic Leadership project
- Case study films of inspiring civic leadership
- Conference Paper: Alexiou, Katerina; Zamenopoulos, Theodore; Hale, Veronica and de Sousa, Sophia (2022).Incubating civic leadership in design: The role of cross-pollination spaces. In: DRS2022: Bilbao (Lockton, D; Lenzi, S; Hekkert, P; Oak, A; Sabada, J and Lloyd, P eds.), Design Research Society. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.575
More on The Glass-House website about the project include: