Creative hubs: Understanding the new economy

A dynamic ecosystem of creative spaces and communities has developed over the last 10 years. This report has been commissioned to better understand their diverse value, processes and motivations and in doing so, analyse how best to support and stimulate the wider creative economy they are rooted in

Creative producers international report

Creative Producers International was an international talent development programme which worked with 15 Creative Producers based in cities across the globe. Their areas of expertise ranged from contemporary art, place making and community engagement through to corporate collaboration, urban innovation and social activism. We have spent the last three years asking urgent questions about place, identity and public space, and exploring how arts and culture can be empowered to take a leading role in the development of our future cities. Our aim was to form and amplify a network of connected ecologies of practice that influence, challenge and support each other, and build an international bank of knowledge and experience around city change

Preventing species extinctions: A global conservation consortium for Erica

Societal Impact Statement Human-caused habitat destruction and transformation is resulting in a cascade of impacts to biological diversity, of which arguably the most fundamental is species extinctions. The Global Conservation Consortia (GCC) are a means to pool efforts and expertise across national boundaries and between disciplines in the attempt to prevent such losses in focal plant groups. GCC Erica coordinates an international response to extinction threats in one such group, the heaths, or heathers, of which hundreds of species are found only in South Africa's spectacularly diverse Cape Floristic Region. Summary Effectively combating the biodiversity crisis requires coordinated conservation efforts. Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and numerous partners have established Global Conservation Consortia (GCC) to collaboratively develop and implement comprehensive conservation strategies for priority threatened plant groups. Through these networks, institutions with specialised collections and staff can leverage ongoing work to optimise impact for threatened plant species. The genus Erica poses a challenge similar in scale to that of the largest other GCC group, Rhododendron, but almost 700 of the around 800 known species of Erica are concentrated in a single biodiversity hotspot, the Cape Floristic Region (CFR) of South Africa. Many species are known to be threatened, suffering the immediate impacts of habitat destruction, invasive species, changes in natural fire regimes and climate change. Efforts to counter these threats face general challenges: disproportionate burden of in situ conservation falling on a minority of the community, limited knowledge of species-rich groups, shortfalls in assessing and monitoring threat, lack of resources for in situ and limitations of knowledge for ex situ conservation efforts and in communicating the value of biological diversity to a public who may never encounter it in the wild. GCC Erica brings together the world's Erica experts, conservationists and the botanical community, including botanic gardens, seed banks and organisations in Africa, Madagascar, Europe, the United States, Australia and beyond. We are collaboratively pooling our unique sets of skills and resources to address these challenges in working groups for conservation prioritisation, conservation in situ, horticulture, seed banking, systematic research and outreach.publishedVersio

Botaniske hager går sammen for å stanse utryddelsen av arter: Global Conservation Consortium for Erica (lyng)

Botanic gardens unite to prevent species extinctions: the Global Conservation Consortium for Erica. Michael Pirie et al. describe an international project to prevent extinctions of species of Erica, the heaths or heathers. The ‘Global Conservation Consortium for Erica’ is coordinated at the Bergen University Gardens under the umbrella of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). The authors describe the challenges of understanding and protecting species rich plant groups where much of the diversity is concentrated in biodiversity hotspots. Around 700 Erica species are only found in South Africa’s Cape Floristic Region. They explain how GCC Erica will address those challenges, including through both ‘in situ’ and ‘ex situ’ conservation

Alternative technologies: A just transition

In the second half of 2023, Pervasive Media Studio was recognised for our work and expertise within responsible R&D at the intersection of creative technology and climate action, by Dr. Erinma Ochu- Wallscourt Associate Professor in Immersive Media based in the DCRC. Dr. Ochu committed to supporting an enquiry into future-thinking that we would facilitate, financed by their work in Engaging Environments- which is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). This support has enabled our enquiry- Alternative Technologies: A Just Transition (ATJT)- to form and flourish.Between February to April 2024, the ATJT collective- made up of individuals from within Pervasive Media Studio's network- gathered to understand and enable life-affirming futures at the intersection of creative technology and climate action. The rationale for this work along with our methods, and the findings from our fruitful conversations, are contained within the attached report. For ease, we have mapped our findings onto a matrix of nine themes we believe are relevant to responsible R&D in this sector: roots, designing comfort, co-production, communication, intentionality & emergence, wellbeing, esteem & inspiration, legacy, and structure.Within the report we've also shared a toolkit from our learnings on (1) How to go beyond 'terms of engagement' and actually co-create a contract of care in this type of work, (2) Co-creating nourishing workshop spaces, and (3) Using self-nomination as a process to curate a group