Estates

The University’s Strategic Plan highlights a value of working collaboratively, creatively, and innovatively with staff, students and partners. By supporting the creation of a Creative Hub in the heart of the city, the University embeds itself further within the regional economy and promotes a synergy between its students and professional opportunities.

The Barbican Creative Hub is one of a suite of cultural assets currently housed within the Centre for Culture and Creativity (C4CC), the think-and-do tank designed to research and lead on cultural programmes and creativity. C4CC and the other cultural assets are within CoASSH Executive Office.

Both the Barbican Creative Hub and Lincoln Arts Centre are part of the cultural assets within C4CC. Barbican Creative Hub has already fostered a strong relationship with the Lincoln Arts Centre; collaborating on several projects including the University of Lincoln’s flagship Arts Council NPO project and intend to continue sharing resources for the furtherment of creative arts in the area. The Barbican Creative is more focused on the creative sector as a whole, whereas the Lincoln Arts Centre focuses on Performing and Visual Arts.

The Barbican Hub is intended for use by some of the 3,000+ businesses and 10,000+ individuals operating in the cultural or creative sector. The café bar will be open to the general public and regular events within the ‘white cube’ space will welcome everyone too.

The building is not predominately for the use of students and staff, but there will be plenty of opportunities for courses across a wide range of disciplines to be involved within the space from collaborative projects, talks, internships, and fostering industry connections. The Barbican Creative Hub also aims to support graduate retention through fostering entrepreneurship and career opportunities in Lincolnshire’s creative and cultural industries.

The Barbican Creative Hub supports all aspects of the creative and cultural industries from art to architecture, publishing to product design, curation to craft, and fashion to film. The project complements similar business enterprise hubs and incubators on campus such as Think Tank and Sparkhouse.

Creatives will be able to use any of the studios, co-working, members’ lounge, meeting rooms, alongside the ‘white cube’ space and café bar. The 7,000 sq ft building has been designed to be as multipurpose as possible. Of the 12 studios, five of these are ‘wet’ studios more suited to practices that need access to water and create light dust/ dirt. Being a grade II listed building there are some restrictions due to weight loadings and air extraction.

There will also be wraparound support programmes, events, and opportunities for the sector including commissions and creatives-in-residence spaces that will be subsidised. There will also be a comprehensive online directory of the creative and cultural industries across Lincolnshire. Local creatives will be invited to exhibit their work, host their own activities, and access new job, tender, and open call opportunities from the Barbican Creative Hub and wider partners.

The Barbican Creative Hub has worked within the constraints of a grade II listed building yet can still offer features that include step free access, lift, and 75% of the studios and spaces being fully wheelchair accessible. We have also incorporated other initiatives such as hearing loops for event spaces and reception.

The Hub is expected to be open in January 2025.

This new dynamic capital project has been made possible due to a unique three-way partnership between University of Lincoln, Lincolnshire Co-Op and City of Lincoln Council. Funding for this ambitious project comes from the Government’s Levelling Up Agenda and through the Town Deal scheme, the High Street Heritage Action Zone from Historic England, and Lincolnshire Co-Op.

The Barbican Creative Hub will operate a fully self-funded model around its membership and service offering that the University will be supporting with existing expertise but not subsidising. The Barbican Creative Hub has a comprehensive 10-year financial business plan that has been scrutinised and approved by the University of Lincoln’s Board of Governors and reports regularly to the college Senior Leadership team, a dedicated steering group, and the wider Cultural and Creative Governance Board and finance committee.

The Barbican Creative Hub is a capital project for which external funding had already been sourced and committed to the project, meaning that it could not have changed the current need for savings across the University.

The measures that the University is currently taking are to ensure the future functioning and economic stability of the institution. This depends on the reduction of regular running costs moving forward, capital projects such as the Barbican Creative Hub are one-off investments for which external capital funding had been ring fenced.

More information on the specific pressures facing Lincoln and the UK higher education sector can be found here: https://lincoln.ac.uk/financialposition/