There is a perception that the North makes an outsized contribution to the culture of Britain and beyond. We know that partnerships between the higher education and cultural sector tackle key social, environmental and other agendas that seek to make the world a better place.

This symposium session discussed how we exploit our combined strengths to tackle the challenges that really matter to the North. 

Session hosts: Edward Harcourt, Pro-Vice Chancellor External Engagement, LJMU; Sarah Fisher, Director Open Eye Gallery

Points arising include:

• Can we tell the story of the North robustly (in the same way as we tell the national story re: culture, with facts, figures as well as narrative)?
• Can we understand the Impact of culture more fully together across the North, across key area’s / challenges?
• How do we situate this story in broader arena’s such as the LEP, key commissioners of culture (Health, Cultural Education Partnerships etc).
• In what ways can we ‘scale-up’ by thinking across the north? (Mechanisms suggested included thinking about Subject Specialist Networks, Knowledge Exchange Networks, Research Partnerships, EU funded partnership programmes).

Suggestions re how the Forum can enable this:

• Identify existing ‘North’ stories and stats.
• Do we have common frameworks / metrics for looking at Research partnerships?
• Can CFN act as a broker for practical North-wide partnerships?

CFN could provide:

• information re:  key external engagement staff in universities;
• a dating service i.e. list of partnerships exploring specific themes / people keen to collaborate on specific areas.