There is a familiar rhythm to conversations about equity across higher education and the cultural sector. We speak about values. We speak about commitments. We speak about inclusion, collaboration, and care. What we examine less often is how those commitments are enacted, how they translate into decisions, and what happens when they do not. This … Read more…
Introduction In February 2026, NCACE convened researchers, cultural practitioners, and policy specialists for an Evidence Café exploring one of the most urgent questions facing our sector: how can we better understand, measure, and value knowledge exchange (KE) in the arts and culture? The session formed part of an ongoing collaboration with the Policy Evidence Unit … Read more…
Most who are reading NCACE blogs will, I think, be broadly pleased that the creative industries are now regarded by government – in last year’s Industrial Strategy but also in several subsequent policy statements – as one of the main drivers of future economic growth. The government now seems to believe that the creative industries … Read more…
Take A Part (TAP) works with communities that have historically and systemically been underserved across the UK, using creative practices to support community-led and community-determined change. Reflecting on the collaborative practices of cultural democracy and co-creation developed over the 17 years of Take A Part’s national practice, Kim Wide MBE, founder and Co-CEO, explores the … Read more…
One of the most strategically interesting developments I’ve encountered this year, through my work across research culture and research-enabling systems, is not a new framework, concordat, or strategy document, but the National Centre for Academic and Cultural Exchange (NCACE) Research Associates pilot. On the surface, the scheme is modest: light-touch institutional support, a small honorarium, access to resources, … Read more…
Akademi, a London based charity, has been taking South Asian dance into schools for over 40 years, pioneering the use of South Asian dance in these spaces. Reach Out and Reveal (ROaR), a project working specifically with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) schools, has been delivered since 2018 to support the physical, emotional and … Read more…
On Friday 5 September 2025, the UK Science Minister Patrick Vallance announced a three-month pause on the work of the 2029 Research Excellence Framework (REF). This was to evaluate and reflect on how the framework can best assess research excellence by reducing bureaucracy. On Wednesday 10 December 2025 at the Universities UK Research and Innovation … Read more…
The government’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper sets out an ambitious and largely welcome agenda: a more joined-up system, clearer pathways, stronger employer engagement and a renewed focus on higher-level skills as a driver of growth. Many of its core themes will feel familiar to those working across higher education, further education and cultural organisations. In fact, much of what is proposed … Read more…
Not all casual encounters with/at academic institutions with infrastructure can result in ‘outcomes’. Yet for me in a rare serendipitous meeting it ‘did’! In my case it was slow sprinkled with prolonged silences of not-knowing, unknown/erratic eruptions of thoughts, vague discussions sometimes random conversations but at other times a quiet, simmering marination evolving deep within … Read more…
Summary This blog post has been written following an NCACE Evidence Café event held in November 2025 on the theme of this blog’s title. It uses data from REF 2021 Impact Case Studies to identify formal collaborations between universities and cultural institutions, discussing the dynamics of how knowledge is produced and what drives transformative collaborations. … Read more…