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We’re investing £7.1 million into 18 leadership development programmes through the Transforming Leadership Fund, offering a range of development opportunities for established and emerging leaders from museums, libraries and arts organisations.

Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries training event, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, March 2019. Photographer: Tim Dickeson.

All the successful projects will carefully consider the diversity of their participants, with a number specifically addressing the underrepresentation of leaders from certain groups – including LeaD, a bespoke career development programme for learning disabled practitioners run by Access All Areas, Disability Arts Online and Manchester Metropolitan University. LeaD is one of three projects supporting D/deaf and disabled leaders – alongside one led by Graeae Theatre Company and one by Shape Arts.

Sector-specific programmes include Leading Libraries led by Libraries Connected, which will be working with 15 library services across the country to deliver long term change – focusing on supporting female and black and minority ethnic library staff. Music charity Brighter Sound will be delivering a programme to help develop female leaders, working with organisations, sole traders and independent producers who want to reshape the music industry.

While many programmes will deliver activity across the country, some focus on developing leadership in specific places, like National Centre for Writing’s programme Collaboration: Place: Change, designed to equip current and future leaders with the skills they need to drive social and economic change across Norfolk and Suffolk. Coventry City of Culture Trust will also run a place-based programme, supporting a diverse cohort of establish, independent and emerging leaders as part of the legacy of UK City of Culture 2021.

City of Literature strand of Norfolk & Norwich Festival, a partnership between the National Centre for Writing and Norfolk & Norwich Festival. Photographer: Neeley Drown

Mags Patten, Executive lead for Workforce Development, Arts Council England, said: 

“Our evidence tells us we have a generation of cultural leaders with great ambition, but also great pressures bearing down on them.  This fund is an investment in those leaders – offering them development opportunities that will give them time and space to think.

“By supporting a diverse range of emerging and established leaders we think we are more likely to achieve the vision laid out in our proposed ten-year strategy, of a country where everyone’s creativity is valued and high quality cultural experiences are available to each of us.”

Find out more

• Learn more about the Transforming Leadership Fund 
• Download a list of project descriptions