EDI co-learning network: Looking forward and handing over

At the beginning of 2025, we announced the refresh and relaunch of Culture Counts’ EDI co-learning network. Delivered in partnership with Equal Media and Culture Centre (EMCC), and thanks to funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, this network aspired to create space for Core Members of Culture Counts, and others across the sector, to learn and work together on questions around building a fairer and more equal culture sector. We invited Matthew Hickman to join our planning team to offer expert insight and guidance, and Ica Headlam represented Culture Counts’ Steering Group in those discussions.

To frame, inform and inspire our thinking, we began by commissioning six diverse artists from across Scotland to create short, new pieces of work on the theme of "dreaming of a fairer future for culture". In March 2025 we were delighted to unveil the results of these creative commissions, with a series of new works from Alberta Whittle, Harry Mould, Harry Josephine Giles, Indra Wilson, Kezia Lewis and Miwa Nagato-Apthorp.

Inspired by these works, over the summer we held a series of four events, culminating at the Scottish Parliament’s Festival of Politics, to share learning and advocate for fairer and more inclusive cultural policy as we approach the 2026 Scottish elections. These events offered space to discuss and explore together the conditions, barriers and opportunities of a cultural sector that is of, by and for everyone in Scotland. We shared some highlights of these conversations here.

We’d agreed at that point to pause, take stock, and agree together how best to move into a final phase of this project delivery. We were keen to conclude the project in a way that reiterated our commitment to working collaboratively, to sharing resources, and to centring work led by those with lived experience of marginalisation within the culture sector. As such, we’re delighted to be transferring lead partner status for the final phase of this project (and ownership of the budget associated with it) to our friends at Creative Balance, a research initiative exploring mental health and wellbeing for Black People and People of Colour (BPOC) in Scotland's creative industries.

Culture Counts will be continuing to work as an active partner with Creative Balance as they seek to create systemic change in creative industries and mental health services, building on our shared aspirations for a “fairer future for culture”. We’re excited to explore, together, how Culture Counts’ advocacy experience can support Creative Balance’s research and depth of lived experience to realise change in the sector that allows more creatives to thrive. Transferring lead partner status to Creative Balance will enable them to shift from research to action, ensuring the experiences of 90+ BPOC creatives directly influence how Scotland's creative sector develops. We can’t wait to continue to be part of that journey.