SCHOLARSHIP DEADLINE 6th July 2026: MA Arts and Cultural Leadership, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton

• MA Arts and Cultural Leadership: Seeks to understand and shape ‘arts and cultural leadership’.
• Working definition of ‘arts and cultural leadership’: Critical, (co-)creative and speculative approaches to organising, strategising, visualising/envisioning, curating and/or catalysing positive change, in attitude, culture, policy and/or practice, in, with, for and/or through, and beyond, the arts and culture, to advance social justice, equity and belonging, and sustainability, via academic, professional, and creative practice.

Yes. We will explore arts and cultural leadership via three inter-related pathways, and their inter-related sub-questions:

• STRAND A) Asking questions about the arts, culture and leadership, and how these terms/practices combine:
  • How do artists lead? How does the arts lead change in society?
  • How to think about and do leadership in and through the arts and culture?
  • How is this similar and/or different to how leadership is explored/practised in the arts and culture currently, and in business and management fields? How to think about and do arts and culture in and through (critical) leadership practice and studies? What is the art(s) of leadership? What are the cultures of leadership?
  • What is the role of creative practice and creative research in arts and cultural leadership?
  • Why do we need to ask questions? Asking questions as a form of leadership? Why stay with the trouble?
  • What is your working definition of ‘arts and cultural leadership’? How do you embody and practise your arts and cultural leadership?
• STRAND B) Asking questions about how arts and cultural leadership relate to social justice, equity and belonging:
  • How does leadership relate to power?
  • What are feminist, decolonial. anti-racist, anti-ableist and intersectional perspectives?
  • Values; ethics; reducing harm: university ethics process
  • What are your values underpinning your leadership? What is your positionality?
• STRAND C) Asking questions about arts and cultural leadership, the digital age and generative AI, sustainability and (y)our future
  • How does this strand relate to the MA’s value of sustainability?
  • How do you exercise your agency when using generative AI? What are your measures to resist surveillance and power of Big Tech?
  • What is your action plan for your future?

Leading educational practice; sustaining a reputation for high-quality scholarly educational practice: 

• I joined Southampton as both subject specialist of the leadership – social value – of the arts and culture, and creative-critical EDI-led pedagogy, in 07/2023. I began as Module Leader for two modules, then Programme Leader from 08/2024.
• The programme was designed by Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries Dan Ashton, who was Programme Leader in the MA’s first year.
• From the start, I drew on my sector-leading scholarship and practice, to make enhancements to the new MA, connecting with UoS strategies (Civic; EDI; Education and Student Experience), to enhance our aims in ‘transformational leadership’, thus also joining UNESCO’s call to position education as a public good by prioritising cultural justice, cultural diversity, care, and solidarity by 2050(2021).
• Combining discourses and practices on/in the creative and cultural industries with critical leadership, social justice, and creative research, I consolidated the MA’s direction of ‘leadership’ as an inclusive, collaborative and transformative approach distinct from ‘arts management’ or ‘arts administration’; 
• Enhancing students’ engagement with industry, improving employability: I added value by embedding pathways for the students to work with my high-value collaborators, e.g. Hear Me Out, a social justice and arts charity; and appointing students as paid facilitators for my Social Practices Lab project; 
• An example of my pedagogical innovationin EDI-led curriculum design is my Masterclasses to Dismantle the ‘Master’ story of Leadership, which showcase change-makers from both the industry and UoS: 
  • Addressing gaps: In a sector where leadership is taught across business schools, arts/design management degrees, and professional leadership development courses in the $366b industry as mastery, authority and hierarchical roles centring individualism and exclusion, students—particularly those from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds—often struggled to see themselves in dominant narratives. Students and the EE have also indicated a desire for more multimodality; 
  • Creative solution: I initiated the Masterclasses, where guests who model atypical, decolonial, transdisciplinary, care-led approaches to organising and strategising, thus bringing to life the MA’s values of social justice, inclusion and belonging, sustainability, and aim of ‘understanding and shaping leadership’, as a creative and collaborative practice towards social change; 
  • The Masterclasses are student-led, as they prepare questions, engage in dialogue, and co-lead sessions with contemporary changemakers, bringing to life the series’ ethos of ‘leadership’ as collaborative, non-hierarchical approaches to organising and change-making; 
  • Speakers for 2023-2024 included: AVP of Social Justice and EDI Pascal Mathias (on purpose and leadership), and Prof. Larry Lynch (on his co-leadership of a Belarus Theatre company), and the EDI Teams (who ran workshops on sexual harassment, racial discrimination and self-advocacy);
  • Importantly – and this is a key theme of my leadership – I used this as an opportunity to build capacity of ECC, by showcasing ECCs like Dr Ruohan Tang (on his international film production career) and Chengge Hu (The Winchester Gallery curating assistant on resisting the Chinese 9-9-6 work cycle); 

Impact and engagement: 

• Early indicators of success: Positive External Examiner feedback (see quote above); University of Southampton Vice Chancellors’ Award 2024 nomination.
• Outstanding student outcomes: Careers for the 2023-2024 cohort across the international GLAM and HE sectors, demonstrating the MA’s capacity to ‘deliver exceptional education that develops future-ready leaders’: e.g. Jinan International Biennale curator’s assistant; Leadership roles in Beijing Tourism board; PhD studies in Germany; Sichuan University of Media and Communications lecturer; media firm Tencent content operator;
• Engagement with external arts and cultural industry through pedagogical innovations: The MA developed 16 project briefs with 11 partners for 21 students. A sector expert described this as ‘innovative’.  
• Exceptional student experience: Nearly 100% of students’ feedback (CDMF averaging 4.76/5 in semester 1) repeatedly highlighted the Masterclasses and Study Visits as USPs, and direct influencing students’ projects and career aspirations (e.g. Tianyi Wang’s film inspired by WSA technician Dave Gibbons’ session);
• The Masterclasses series is becoming the MA’s flagship programme and impactful KEE initiative under my Programme Leadership, and is playing a key role to help the MA become a sector-leading PGT in teaching and exemplifying arts and cultural leadership: 
• The Masterclasses now have a public interface as hybrid programmes, and are deepening connections between UoS and stakeholders in the creative and cultural industries, arts and humanities and more. 
  • I designed a structured, inclusive format, with warm-up, Q&A, and debrief, scaffolded by platforms like Padlet to enable anonymous questions and feedback, thus ensuring that participants feel safe; 
  • Activities like inclusive approaches to policy-making, and themes like failure are equipping students the skills and knowledge to model alternative futures, and empowering them as ACL.
  • Sessions are hosted on Teams or in-person, and recorded and transcribed. The 30 hours of materials are edited by a PGR and will be disseminated on a decentralised platform like Peertube, to enable open access, which will further enhance the MA’s visibility. The Masterclasses are thus also enhancing learning by developing accessible, coherent, and imaginative resources and assets for the MA; 

Embedded at different points of the MA, in conversation with stipulated modules, and co-hosted by others in the teaching team, the Masterclasses are responsive to emerging issues and guest availability

• The MA ACL is evolving into a mature, stable programme with a high-calibre curriculum and cohort. MA ACL is strengthening UoS’s goal for visionary leadership and shaping the next generation of arts leaders with artistic intelligence, and fulfilling our ambition in demonstrating the ‘major, forward-thinking role in supporting arts and culture through its civic and global engagement activities’, placing art and design at the forefront of tackling contemporary challenges, education, research, and the community’ (Framing the Future Report 2025). MA ACL is clarifying how UoS isn’t only a site of learning about leadership, but a global HE trailblazer in how leadership is taught and practised as/with/through the arts and culture.
• I have helped to enhance the MA pedagogically, strategically and operationally,and to future-proof it. My key interventions include:
• A) Consolidated the definition and direction of ‘arts and cultural leadership’ by framing it in three dimensions: Creative and Critical; Diverse and Inclusive; Speculative and Future-making, and disseminating this to students, staff and industry stakeholders; 
• B) Internationalised and/or diversified curricula and team, and expanding it from beyond its initial UK focus; 
• C) Operationalised leadership in what/how we do, so that ACL is an embodied practice (not just static academic subject or theory), and by modelling ACL as its Programme Leader; 
• D) Developed a global community with alumni, ECC, creative/cultural industry professionals through creating assets, using social media and professional platforms as sites of intervention and more. 

Impact and engagement: 

• Contributed to the debate and development of education policies and strategies within and beyond the university on the social value of the arts and culture as a result of A). This:
• Clarified the positionality – and towards its leadership – of the MA in/for the discipline and sector; 
• Helped to future-proof and strengthen MA ACL as a distinct degree focused on change- and future-making in/with/for/beyond the arts and culture, in conversation and solidarity with other international, inclusive, interdisciplinary stakeholders and potential applicants that also seek to advance social justice, equity and belonging, and sustainability – which are the MA’s written values; 
• Improved the MA’s appeal to a wider audience of arts and cultural community organisers and activists, who have historically often been resistant to dominant , neo-liberalist approaches to ‘leadership’.

• Improved the MA’s alignment with the quality standards, strategies and ambitions of UoS as a result of A). This:
  • Enhanced the MA’s alignment with its validated aims and Learning Outcomes; Responded to EE’s and students’ feedback in their desire for more creative practice, and thus also aligned the MA with highest learning order of the Bloom’s revised taxonomy with the emphasis on creativity; Aligned the MA with the UoS practice PhD criteria, and thus also make PGR progression more tangible;
  • Helped to counter the negative impacts of gen AI and overdependency in translation apps; 

• Enabled alignment with teams’ research: The clarification of ACL capitalises on the research, and professional and personal experiences of the small team, and also allow them to enhance their teaching with their research; 
• Harnessed International Talent: The move thus enabled a more effective integration of the diverse expertise of our new team, enabling them to embed their research and sector-leading professional practices—eg curatorial interventions at MACBA in Spain—into the curriculum. This also decolonising and internationalising the MA. 
• These efforts also help to tentacularly join up the curricula, to equip and empower students are building their own building blocks and toolkit towards their own framework and practice of arts and cultural leadership
• Students grasp and are enacting the values of ACL, seen in the highly-positive 2024-2025 student outcomes.
• Success stories are also emerging: for instance one student volunteered at London Pride 2025. This was Xinyu’s first – and clearly certainly not the last – time engaged in such an activity, having come from a country (China) that does not recognise same-sex marriage or provide legal rights for LGBTQIA+ people. 

Raised MA visibility: 

• The MA was unknown as new degree, and was not visible or integrated at WSA and beyond. 
• Initiated and invested MA funding in the commisioning of assets and platforms, eg banners and showreel.
• Created new accounts and groups on LinkedIn and Instagram, Students thus became our ambassadors and embodiments of ACL, as well as the MA, and the University, engaging with alumni and stakeholders.
• Apart from integrating with the AMT and WSA calendar and community through Material Interests, Late Thursdays and Talking Heads programmes, the MA also participated in the MA Degree show for the first time with a new digital asset in the form of a showreel edited by our inaugural media-artist-in-residence.
• Impacts: Social media engagement has improved MA’s visibility. We’re slowly creating a community of stakeholders. The showreel was praised by Winchester Mayor. We are planning a one-stop public-facing site. 

Building capacity and ACL community of practice: 

• As a programme that does not just teach but self-reflexively seeks to enact, exemplify and embody arts and cultural leadership within and beyond the University, the MA has been identifying, developing and implementing of education best practice and enhancement in several ways. 
• Enhanced students’ access to expertise: Expanded teaching community 3 to 9. Widened disciplinary expertise to include in disability design, decolonising ecologies and Fine Art. Eg Principle teaching fellow Nick Stewart. 
• Greater coherence and cohesiveness of team: Staff and contributions previously not considered as ‘core’ have since 2024-2025 be more fully integrated into programme, slowly strengthening the ACL community. 
• MA ACL tentacularly networked across WSA, FAH, and UoS by team through staff roles in, and engagement with: REF and impact championship, Cultural Network leadership, Academic conduct and responsibility, ECC championship, EDI and disability, SIAH, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton Arts and Humanities Festival, Social Practices Lab, WSA Exchange, Material Interests, Talking Heads, Future Fit Assessment.
• To strengthen what and how MA engages with EE (instead of only during exam boards), and to enable closer alignment with MA and its sector-leading approach to ‘ACL’, I initiated regular correspondence via email and Teams, signed EE up to Blackboard platforms to enable learning about our culture and curricula Thus: EE gained better understanding of MA, staff, students, and vice versa, leading to positive feedback.    

Diversifying student demography (slowly):

• Introduced critical questions framed around social and environmental justice for the admissions process. 
• Invited others in the team to be a part of this process and improve alignment. 
• Early impacts is seen in a more diverse and higher quality of the cohort for 2025-2026 of 26 students (an increase from 21 previously) with 3 male-identifying students, 2 UK scholarship-holders. A mature neuroqueer student has joined PL from Manchester, and a toddler sometimes joins us too. 
• 2026-2027 applicants included: a former employee of the Taiwanese Ministry of culture, a Palestinian illustrator and Sharjah Biennale worker, and a US-Peruvian composer from Minnesota.

Enhancing inclusion in leadership approach: 

• Seek to model, embody ACL: Lead in ways that are inclusive and collegial. Introduced a more collaborative and embodied approach to processes, to enhance access, and strengthen MA ACL’s identity.      
• Curated MA ACL student Involvement in research activities: e.g. Social Practices Lab project, book launch. 
• Proactively worked closely with DoP, CHEP, iSolutions. Introduced inclusive practical approaches. Early adoption of Blackboard Ultra, and use of custom-made visual motifs I designed improved access for all. 
• Feedback from team member: “Thank you for your care-full approach”
• Enhancement of WSA reputation and quality with sector-shaping, research-informed programme: My interventions are shaping the MA a distinctive position in arts and cultural management/ leadership degrees, and beginning to influence how ACL is taught, understood and practised in the UK and internationally. These initiatives are positioning UoS as an international trailblazer in creative leadership education, showing a way to reimagine arts and culture’s role in social change, and advancing UoS’s mission for transformative education by nurturing the next generation of leaders.

• Caust, J., 2018. Arts Leadership in Contemporary Contexts. 1st edition ed. Routledge.
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1: ‘Arts and Leadership: An Overview’ pp 3-22
  • Chapter 2: ‘Culture and Arts Leadership’ pp23-39
  • Chapter 3: ‘Women and Arts Leadership’ pp40-60
  • Chapter 8: ‘New Framings and Arts Leadership’ pp146-164
  • Chapter 9: ‘Arts Leadership and Future Challenges’ pp165-169
• Douglas, A., 2013. Values and assumptions in the concept of cultural leadership. Available at: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/248459/values-and-assumptions-in-the-concept-of-cultural-leadership
• Fremantle, C.N. and Douglas, A., 2009. The Artist as Leader. The Artist as Leader Research report, AHRC. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/4489268/The_Artist_as_Leader
• Prakasam, N. ed., 2023. Leadership: A Diverse, Inclusive and Critical Approach. Los Angeles London New Delhi Singapore Washington DC Melbourne: SAGE Publications Ltd.
  • Chapter 1: Introduction pp3-12
  • Chapter 7: Power and the Dark Side of Leadership (James Wallace and Naveena Prakasam) pp131-156
  • Chapter 9: Leadership and the Digital Age (Desiree Joy Cranfield, Isabella Venter and Andrea Tick) pp 171-202
  • Chapter 10: Datafication, Surveillance and Leadership (Naveena Prakasam) pp 203-220
  • Chapter 11: Gender, Race and Leadership (Naveena Prakasam) 221-238
  • Chapter 12: Conclusion (Naveena Prakasam) pp239-242
  • Glossary 243-250
• Tan, K.S. and Northey, T., 2020. Artful leadership against a clever virus. ArtsProfessional. [online] 18 Jun. Available at: https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/artful-leadership-against-clever-virus