On 4th June TCCE Co-Director Suzie Leighton will be joining Emma Squire, Director, Arts, Heritage and Tourism, DCMS, Professor Jonathan Needlands, Academic Director, Cultural Partnerships, University of Warwick, Sarah Ellis, Director of Digital Development of the Royal Shakespear Company and others in the upcoming Westminster Media Forum Conference Next steps for arts and culture in England – widening participation, fostering innovation and collaboration, and implementing Arts Council England’s new ten-year strategy.

Suzie will be focussing on collaboration and innovation and how sharing knowledge and resources can help arts and cultural SMEs develop innovative and resilient ways of working.

The conference will be an opportunity to consider priorities for the delivery plan for the strategy – and also how the strategy itself has have been received by stakeholders, and alternative proposals that have been put forward.

Key areas for discussion:

• The ACE ten-year strategy – and priorities for its delivery, including:
  • how well it addresses priorities for putting the cultural sector on a sustainable footing for the future, and
  • what a fair regional distribution of investment looks like;
• Collaboration – how funders, local authorities, education, and organisations and individuals in the sector are successfully working together to widen local participation and engagement;
• Young people – what more can be done to enhance the role of arts and culture in schools, despite funding pressures reducing opportunities for cultural experiences;
• Innovation and digital engagement – latest thinking and practice on use of technology, immersive and interactive experiences, supporting creative experimentation, and its revenue potential;
• Innovation in traditional settings – use of immersive technologies such as virtual, augmented and mixed reality in areas such as theatre – and addressing adoption and commercialisation barriers;
• Fundraising – including ongoing debates around the ethics and public perception in areas such as climate, and to fundraising in the sector and the partners organisations choose to work with;
• Net zero – shaping the sector’s contribution to the drive to net zero, and the practicalities – looking a facilities, organisational practices and the way work is created; and
• International opportunities – the role of policy in maximising opportunities for England’s arts and culture globally as the UK looks to reposition itself within Europe and the wider world.