Postgraduate Programmes

I am currently Director of the Institute for Cultural Practices which was founded in 2009 to oversee postgraduate taught and research programmes for arts, heritage, creative and cultural industries. These programmes include Masters in Art Gallery and Museum Studies, Arts Management, Policy and Practice, Heritage Studies, and Creative and Cultural Industries. PhD programmes in these areas include a PhD by Professional Practice in Arts and Cultural Management and Museum Practice. 

I have a background in sociology, and undertook my doctoral research project at the University of Leicester investigating popular music, cultural policy and local cultural management. Since then, I have worked on a range of policy-related academic research projects, including an AHRC funded study of the Millennium Dome, an ESRC study of Local Music Industries and Economic Development in Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield, and the development of local cultural strategies and creative industries mapping. For five years (between 2004 - 2009) I held advisory and consultancy positions to the cultural sector with non-departmental bodies in the North West, and was the founding Director of the online regional research capability, the Northwest Culture Observatory. I returned to work in the higher education sector in 2009, developing a number of new postgraduate programmes in arts management and cultural policy.

Since then I've been involved in a range of research, knowledge exchange and public engagement activities for the School of Arts Languages and Cultures and the Faculty of Humanities, concerning the role and value of the arts and relationships between culture, place and policy. I regularly speak on these topics at academic conferences and sector symposia. Within the University, I work closely with Policy@Manchester and am affiliated to the Manchester Urban Institute. I am also a Co-I on the AHRC Policy and Evidence Centre for Creative Industries (the PEC) along with colleagues in SALC and AMBS.  Externally, I have been a trustee and Chair for a number of arts charities including, Brighter Sound, a music education organisation in Manchester, the Macclesfield Barnaby Festival, which I founded in 2009, and Abandon Normal Devices, a roving digital arts and culture festival. 

Research interests focus on culture and place, local cultural management, cultural mapping and planning methodologies, collaboration and knowledge making relationships between higher education and the arts. Research strategies favour collaborative, practice-based and practice-led interdisciplinary research drawing on mixed methods.

Between 2012 - 2018 I was Co-Investigator on the AHRC Connected Communities large-grant project Understanding Everyday Participation - Articulating Cultural Value which led to research outputs including a monograph on the role of the public park within local cultural policy. I am currently leading a research network Beyond the Creative City, with partners in Manchester, Melbourne and Toronto, as part of my research as a Co-I on the AHRC Policy and Evidence Centre for Creative Industries.