The LUCIA programme will fund five research networks focusing on community empowerment, growth and equitable access, with a coordinating early career fellowship building partnerships between the networks and with local, regional and national government.
The LUCIA programme enables cross-sector partnerships that put communities at the centre of cultural decision-making and local growth. LUCIA pilot networks will focus on:
- community empowerment and cohesion
- cross-sector collaboration and policy influence
- local cultural ecosystem growth
The pilot phase of the programme begun on 1 April 2026. It consists of five research networks and an early career fellowship which is delivered in partnership with the Local Government Association.
Research networks
Directing Urban Energies to Townsend (DUETT)
Network focus: harnessing culture to provide opportunities for young people, tackle anti-social behaviour and urban deprivation in Belfast.
Research organisation: Ulster University
DUETT will work with the Ulster Orchestra in deprived areas of Belfast to create sustainable creative pathways for disenfranchised young people. It will use Professor Alex McDowell’s World Building methodologies to provide safe creative spaces, skills development and alternatives to street-based antisocial behaviour.
This work will also deepen partners’ understanding of challenges in ‘forgotten’ communities and inform the Department for Communities’ emerging Northern Ireland Heritage, Culture and Creativity strategy to 2035.
Network leadership team:
- Professor Paul Moore (Ulster University)
- Professor Duncan Morrow (Ulster University)
- Lucy McCullagh (Ulster Orchestra)
Project partners:
Challenging Coercive Control through Participatory Theatre: a case study and performance centring South Asian women in Blackburn
Network focus: addressing community cohesion and inclusion through cultural expression in Blackburn.
Research organisation: University of Nottingham
The project will create a safe, trusted space for women to openly share the pressures and forms of control shaping their lives, using interviews, workshops and theatre monologues to produce a community-led performance that informs better local and regional responses to coercive control.
Network leadership team:
- Professor Sarah-Jane Page (University of Nottingham)
- Saima Afzal (S.A.S. Rights)
- Professor Johanna Stiebert (University of Leeds)
Project partners:
- Greater Manchester Combined Authority
- Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council
- Lancashire Partnership Against Crime
- Blackburn College
- Lancashire Police Crime Commissioner
Stories of Us
Network focus: empowering communities in Plymouth and Hastings to use data creatively to shape urban regeneration.
Research organisation: University of Plymouth
Stories of Us will tell stories through data, capture inequalities and express lived and felt experience of place to inform decision-making. The project will develop community capacity through data storytelling workshops, funding a series of micro grants and bringing together a powerful place-based network.
The outcomes will be digital tools, robust evidence and best practice to be shared nationally about how communities can actively use stories and data to inform future urban regeneration and ensure policy decisions reflect lived experience.
Network leadership team:
- Professor Katharine Willis (University of Plymouth)
- Professor Dylan Yamada-Rice (Falmouth University)
- Iola Nelson (University of Plymouth)
- Dr Lauren Ansell (University of Plymouth)
- Gini Simpson (Hastings Commons Community Land Trust)
- Hannah Sloggett (Nudge Community Builders)
- Matt Bell (Plymouth Octopus Project)
- Natasha Nicholson (Prospect Brixham CIC)
- Nicola Bacon (Social Life)
- Martin Howitt (The Data Place)
- Dr Carolina Vasilikou (University of Cambridge)
Project partners:
A New Hearing for Rap: a network for tackling racial injustice’s impact on cultural participation
Network focus: co‑creating creative outputs with young people in London to explore rap music’s role in the justice system and access to musical participation.
Research organisation: University of Oxford
A New Hearing for Rap addresses the misuse of rap music in the criminal justice system, which threatens to undermine the positive role that such music-making plays in the lives of young people in marginalised urban communities. Young participants will take the lead in gathering insights with their peers and will use creative multimedia storytelling to share what they learn.
Training workshops with legal professionals will support a deeper understanding of rap as a musical genre and encourage more informed engagement with this type of evidence in order to transform attitudes within the criminal justice system.
Network leadership team:
- Professor Naomi Waltham-Smith (University of Oxford)
- Dr Lambros Fatsis (City St George’s, University of London)
- Dr Yusef Bakkali (De Montfort University)
- Adèle Oliver (Independent)
- Emma Snell (JUSTICE)
- Justin Finlayson (United Borders)
Project partners:
Twilight Commons: Unlocking Cultural Access in Coastal Communities
Network focus: new cultural experiences that strengthen place connection, wellbeing and identity for communities across Morecambe Bay.
Research organisation: University of Lancaster
Twilight Commons will focus on widening access to Morecambe Bay’s cultural and natural spaces for communities in Morecambe and Barrow-in-Furness. It uses night walks, art commissions and an immersive policy lab to bring together residents, artists, service providers and policymakers.
Through the creation of shared ‘problem spaces’, the project will increase capacity to deliver cultural and wellbeing activities, while producing a model to inform local cultural strategies and regional investment at a major moment of transition for the towns and the Bay.
Network leadership team:
- Dr Nathan Jones (Lancaster University)
- Carys Nelkon (Lancaster University)
- Dr Jen Southern (Lancaster University)
- Professor Mark Levine (Lancaster University)
- Dr Martin Quinn (Lancaster University)
- Professor Nick Dunn (Lancaster University)
- Elena Jackson (Deco Publique)
Project partners:
Early career fellowship
The early career fellowship, hosted by the Local Government Association, was awarded to Dr Joseph Owen (University of Southampton). Joseph will be playing a key coordinating role, helping shape the development of equitable cross-sector partnerships between LUCIA networks and with local, regional and national government.
He will also conduct his own research into equitable creative and cultural practice with specific attention on the visual arts sector. His project, A New Model for Visual Arts Participation, explores the visual arts as a socially engaged practice. It seeks to develop a collaborative and equitable model that broadens participation, enriches urban culture, and inspires future artists from all backgrounds.
Working with the Local Government Association, Contemporary Visual Arts Network and other partner organisations, Joseph will produce policy briefs, frameworks, and toolkits that strengthen visual arts practice across diverse spaces and scales. The work aims to inform national cultural policy and expand inclusive participation through artist programmes, community studios, and regional galleries.