Mapping the Landscape 

This free online training session will cover approaches to cross-sector collaboration and how different sectors – specifically, the Higher Education sector, the Arts, Culture and Heritage sector, and the Voluntary, Community, & Social Enterprise sector – sit and work alongside one another. It will explore the key priorities and drivers that influence these sectors, the types of organisations and professional roles, and the nuances of how they operate. The session aims to start a conversation and generate reflection on how people can start to find alignment in their partnerships or approaches to partnership work.

The session will be hosted by David Owens and will include a panel discussion, an interactive activity, and a presentation that sets the scene of cross-sector collaboration.

Chaired by David Owens, we will hear a panel discussion between Zain Hafeez, Senior Community Organiser at Citizens UK and Funding Manager at Civic Power Fund, and Dr Juanita Cox, Community Engagement Researcher at University of Edinburgh, and Lorna Powell, CPEP Public Engagement Officer, about how to impactfully and equitably navigate cross-sector collaborations.

This will be followed by an interactive activity where representatives of different sectors will each host a breakout room and audience members can select which rooms they’d like to join. Representatives from HE, Arts & Heritage, and the VCSE sector will talk about the key drivers in each sector, what motivates people and how they work, and their top tips for partnership. There will also be the opportunity for questions and conversation in each room, with generous time for plenary feedback.

We invite you to join this dynamic and engaging session to start conversations, build understanding across sectors and take away ideas to inform your own collaborative working.

What will be covered?

David Owen

David has over fifteen years of experience working with universities and a wide variety of institutions to support the co-design and development of university-community engagement strategies and programmes. His areas of expertise include engagement, partnership, place-based engagement, systems thinking, and organisational learning. As an associate with the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, he recently worked with them to help develop the Place Navigator and the Civic Capabilities Framework, two tools to help university staff in England get to grips with their local area. David is an experienced facilitator and trainer and has also written extensively in the field of University-Community engagement and led numerous publications and policy reports, including A Handbook for Authentic Learning in Higher Education, the University Partnership Playbook, The Engaged University: Turning Words into Action and The State of Play: Public Engagement with Research in UK Universities.

Dr Juanita Cox

Dr Juanita Cox is Community Engagement Researcher on the 3-year AHRC‑funded project Voices in Slavery’s Archive at the University of Edinburgh. She co‑curated the ground-breaking Senate House Library exhibition In the Grip of Change: The Caribbean and its British Diaspora (2024–25). Previously, she was Research Fellow on The Windrush Scandal in a Transnational and Commonwealth Context and an earlier scoping project, An Oral History of the Windrush Generation and their Relationship to the British State, 1948-2018. A leading authority on Guyanese novelist Edgar Mittelholzer, she edited Creole Chips and Other Writings: Short Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Essays  (2018). She is a trustee of the Oral History Society, co‑founder of Guyana SPEAKS, and serves on the editorial board of Black Histories: Dialogues.

Zain Hafeez

Zain Hafeez works across community organising, funding and systems change. He leads place-based work at the Civic Power Fund, organises for Citizens UK Migration Justice campaigning work and is a consultant working on community power and systems change. He also advises institutions on community power and participatory approaches, including co-designed learning and evaluation frameworks, grounded in both practice and lived experience.