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Creative economy & culture

We back new ideas to grow the creative economy, and help arts and cultural organisations thrive.

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Amplified

Supporting cultural and creative organisations seeking to develop digital ideas that generate social impact.
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Team

Deborah Fox

Deborah Fox

Programme Manager, Innovation Lab

Deborah works in the Innovation Lab and is responsible for the development, management and delivery of creative economy programmes.

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Celeste Salas

Celeste Salas

Programme Manager

Celeste manages the Creative Business Mentor Network, a programme which aims to nurture some of the UK’s most promising creative companies by matching them with successful mentors.

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Fran Sanderson

Fran Sanderson

Director of Arts Programmes and Investments

Alongside heading up the Arts, Culture and Creativity team, Fran also has primary responsibility for the Arts Impact Fund.

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Arts and Heritage Matched Crowdfunding Pilot

We're working with arts and heritage funders to explore the potential of crowdfunding through mixing money from the crowd with grant funding.
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Team

Jonathan Bone

Jonathan Bone

Senior Researcher, New Technology and Startups

Jonathan is a senior researcher in the New Technology and Startups team.

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Sam Mitchell

Sam Mitchell

Programme Manager, Digital Arts & Media

Sam Mitchell is a Programme Manager in the Digital Arts & Media team at Nesta, working across a range of areas such as crowdfunding and business acceleration. Previously he was the Research Manager for the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts. He managed the annual Digital Culture survey, along with a range of other evaluation and research activities related to the Fund.

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Peter Baeck

Peter Baeck

Head of Collaborative Economy Research

Peter focuses on the collaborative economy, crowdfunding, P2P lending and the role of digital technolgies in public and social innovation. Peter lead much of Nesta's research into crowdfunding and P2P lending as an innovative way of financing products and services in the UK, and has co-authored the industry reports Understanding Alternative Finance, Pushing Boundaries and Crowdfunding Good Causes. Alongside this peter has also worked a number of practical tools programmes for those interested in crowdfunding such as Working the Crowd, the online crowdfunding directory, Crowdingin.com and the arts and heritage matched crowdfunding pilot.     Alongside this he has been involved in Nesta research projects on public sector innovation labs and leads Nesta's research on digital social innovation. Peter has also delivered research and project management for People Powered Health (PPH) - a one year Nesta programme that, through a partnership with six UK health localities, explored how coproduction for people living with long term health conditions, can be taken to scale within health services. A particular focus of PPH is capturing evidence on the impact on patient outcomes and cost of health services by coproduced solutions.

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Christopher Burnett

Christopher Burnett

Policy & Research Intern, New Technology and Startups

Christopher focussed on the field of start-ups and entrepreneurship, mainly working on the Startup Europe Partnership 2.0 project.

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Toby Baker

Toby Baker

Assistant Programme Manager, Education

Toby is an Assistant Programme Manager within the Innovation Lab's Education Team. He's particularly interested in education to work transition and enhancing the role of universities. Before this, Toby worked within Nesta's Government Innovation Team, where his work focused on digital social innovation and how technology can be used to enable people to collaborate to address social challenges more effectively.  He co-authored the recent 'What Next for Digital Social Innovation?' report which identified barriers and enablers of the growth of digital social innovation across Europe.

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Creative Enterprise Programme

A practical capacity-building programme to support creative entrepreneurs around the world and encourage sustainable and resilient livelihoods.
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Team

Kimberley Ballantyne

Kimberley Ballantyne

Learning Services Manager

Kimberley works in the Innovation Skills team as a Learning Services Manager, helping to build and deliver Nesta’s learning and skills offer. She is specifically responsible for the Creative Enterprise Programme.

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Georgina Innes

Georgina Innes

Learning Services Manager

Georgina works in the Innovation Skills team as a Learning Services Manager.

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Sonja Dahl

Sonja Dahl

Head of Innovation Learning Programmes

As Head of Innovation Learning Programmes, Sonja is responsible for designing and delivering Nesta’s Innovation Skills programmes for the public and community sectors.

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Isobel Roberts

Isobel Roberts

Content and Communications Manager, Innovation Skills

Isobel works in the Innovation Skills team as Content and Communications Manager, helping to build Nesta's learning and development offering.

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Diana Hidalgo

Diana Hidalgo

Design and Production Assistant

Diana is the Design and Production Assistant for the Innovation Skills team.

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