Summary

The project delivers innovative research, this research aims for proposals that innovate in the area of policy for the city, and a masters module (focussing on innovation) will be changed, expanded and re-located as a result. The module is Culture and Social Innovation, a Summer Term module that allows students to develop lines of professional practice -- using culture and creativity for 'social innovation.' It also involves a series of seminars on new models of development, such as social enterprise and new global trends in creative industries for urban or city development (incubators, innovation hubs, arts enterprise, etc.). The research either side of this module (which is delivered in the summer term) will undertake the necessary ground work for exploiting its full potential for multi-level participation through urban intervention in the city of Coventry. Itself framed by substantial research on the potential for using a city as a 'creative platform' for pedagogy, this project proposal seeks to outline a strategically effective plan for (i) student engagement with the city's spaces, resources and creative professionals; and (ii) productive interconnections between Warwick's pedagogy and research and Coventry's evolving cultural and creative industries. It will offer students an exciting framework within which to engage with the evolving urban economy, and gain professional experience of creating, planning and managing a series of public events at cultural location -- in coordination with our city colleagues (The Albany Theatre; Coventry University's Culturae Mundi student society; Rachelle Viader Knowles Associate Head, Coventry School of Art and Design; Colin Scott at Positive Images Festival). The project will explore ways of 'opening' the existing module structure and facilitate 3 different registers of participation along with different options for skills-set development. The project features three stages, the first is research, the second is the module duration proper, and the third is evaluation and stakeholder consultation [set out below]. The project as a whole is directed by Dr Vickery, assisted by a Coventry-based artist Emilia Moniszko, currently the lead on a core module creative project for the new MA Arts, Enterprise and Development (opened Autumn 2014).