In keeping with our CoC2021 research strategy and the City of Culture Trust’s key thematic areas of Collaborative, Caring and Dynamic City we have five main themes that explore the role of arts and culture in tackling particular issues (such as loneliness or climate change) and specifically relating to one (or more) of the following broad research areas:

• Culture, Rights & Community: cultural memory, identity, value, heritage, social histories, freedom, security, justice & human rights
• Cultures of Work, Inclusive Growth & the Creative Economy: digital, cultural & creative industry collaboration. Social value, innovation & entrepreneurship, local & regional sustainable growth, gender 
• Culture, Health & Well-Being: adult & youth mental health, changing behaviours, supportive technologies, food & health, tackling isolation & loneliness, increasing happiness
• Playful City: youthful, playful, creative, innovative, imaginative, mapping, digital humanities uses of data, AR/VR/ immersive technologies, social media analytics 
• Communities, Resilience & Environmental Sustainability: community engagement & development, social & economic security, environmental humanities & sustainability, green innovation & technologies, energy, urban science, climate change

Remember you can see our projects so far on our Research Projects page and within our brochures dated June 2019 and March 2020.

Our projects often span multiple themes and as we develop our webpages we will introduce ways in which to identify which themes each project speaks to.