Collaborators

This website, the report and the Think Kit have been developed through a series of projects and collaborations.

  • Cultural strategies, compacts and futures (2022-23) funded by Public Policy Southampton
  • Connecting and placing cultural strategies (2025-26) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council Impact Acceleration Account at the University of Southampton.
  • Cultural Strategies – Approaches to Consultation and Evaluation (2025-2026) funded by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities Strategic Research Fund (University of Southampton)
Professor Dan Ashton

Dan is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Southampton where his research and education activities focus on cultural and creative industries organisations, work and policy. He has been project leader on the three projects related to cultural strategies which have generated the materials and resources shared on this site.

GeoData

Dr Julia Branson is Co-Director of GeoData supporting the development of Think Kit resource 8 (geographies and boundaries).

Andrew Sutton is a Senior Enterprise Fellow with GeoData focusing on the ArcGIS map used for Think Kit resource 8 (geographies and boundaries) and supporting with Think Kit resource 2 (findable and sharable).

Local Government Association

Ian Leete is Senior Adviser – Culture, Tourism and Sport with the Local Government Association, the project partner for Connecting and placing cultural strategies . Ian is part of the design team for the Cultural Strategies Think Kit and co-facilitated the Community of Practice sessions during the summer 2025.

iSolutions at the University of Southampton

The University of Southampton Research Application Support Team supported the development of WordPress and the database. They were formed in 2020  as a team dedicated to supporting research related applications at the University, and have worked in many research areas from the tools which manage the largest UK university towing tank to a database of medieval poetry and music.

Dr Zubair Shafiq is a learning designer on Connecting and placing cultural strategies and part of the design team for the Cultural Strategies Think-kit

Matthew Deeprose is an Accessible Solutions Architect and carried out the accessibility changes and helped created the accessibility statement.

Research Associates at the University of Southampton

Dr Makanani Bell was the Research and Innovation Associate on the Cultural strategies, compacts and futures project, collaborating on the knowledge exchange event and co-authoring the Cultural strategies and futures report, and on the Cultural Strategies – Approaches to Consultation and Evaluation project expanding and updating the Cultural Strategies Think Kit.

Michael Kurniwan was the Research and Innovation Associate on Connecting and placing cultural strategies and part of the design team for the Cultural Strategies Think Kit

Dr Joey Jones was a Research and Innovation Associate on Connecting and placing cultural strategies focusing on the Cultural Strategies dataset.

Think Kit Community of Practice

The Community of Practice (details here) meet regularly between May and July 2025 to explore the report recommendations and develop the Think Kit.

NameRoleOrganisation
Dan BrownHead of Creative DevelopmentOnFife (Fife Cultural Trust)
Michelle ButlerCultural Development OfficerCanterbury Council
Rob CampbellHead of Culture and Heritage ServicesBath and North East Somerset Council
Alexandra HoltHeritage and Culture Projects ManagerWyre Council
Elise HurcombeArts Development ManagerBristol City Council
Natalie MooreBristol UNESCO City of Film ManagerBristol City Council
Petra RobertsAssistant Director for Culture, Libraries & HeritageHackney Council
Wendy ScottCultural Development ManagerNorthumberland County Council