The Centre for Culture and Creativity builds interdisciplinary approaches to vital and complex critical, historical and creative questions. Our Centre brings together researchers and practitioners from across the Arts and Humanities to enrich cultural understanding, enhance public debate, further creative and applied practice, and drive positive social change.

The Centre positions itself within the national and international research landscape as a unique body, investigating and intersecting key areas including:

• representation, identity and disability;
• place, public space and belonging;
• well-being and narrative;
• participation, socio-economics and curatorial theory;
• collected and contested memories;
• radicalism, revolution, democracy and dissent in historical and contemporary contexts.

The Centre works across a range of literary, cultural, historical, artistic and creative fields drawing on a number of special collections and archives, including the collections of the MIMA School of Art and Design and Teesside University Library. We work in partnership with a range of regional, national and international organisations and charities in arts, education, industry, heritage, museums, public health and policy sectors to enrich societal resilience and well-being.

This Research Centre hosts Teesside University’s input into the AHRC Centre for Doctoral Training, The Heritage Consortium, and the Northern Bridge Consortium. The Centre also partners with Tate Plus, National Gallery Research Network, Middlesbrough Cultural Partnership, Creative Fuse North East and Creative People and Places project: Borderlands.