About Us
We are an independent, not-for-profit organisation committed to advancing the UK’s creative, cultural, and heritage ecosystem.
We were founded in 2022 by Trevor MacFarlane - a former creative industries practitioner and policy specialist who has advised senior politicians in the UK and EU parliaments.
Since then, the team has grown to include seasoned research and policy professionals with senior experience across local and regional authorities and national governments too.
We draw on an extensive network of research associates and technical experts to complement our core team, ensuring tailored capabilities for each of the project we take on for our clients and partners.
How We Work
We’re not a typical think tank or consultancy.
As a not-for-profit, our work is grounded in core values of transparency, collaboration, and ensuring voices often excluded from policymaking are heard.
We think that too much policy associated with our sectors is designed by small groups of highly connected people in backrooms. We believe that policymaking processes should be open to a wider range of stakeholders and that this is necessary if we are to deal with the inequities that characterise parts of them.
Our purpose-driven, boutique offering allows our team of specialists to provide clients and partners with the focused attention they deserve - delivering greater impact and accelerating change.
By applying a distinctive ‘ecosystem’ approach, we are able to co-design policies that benefit stakeholders beyond those with the time and resources to commission our services or participate in our projects. For example, this involves publishing as much work as we can on this website open source so that as many people as possible can benefit.
“I love nothing more than combining my creative and political sensitivity to connect networks, influence decision makers and act strategically in the interests of our sectors.”
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Director of Culture Commons
Trevor MacFarlane is the Founding Director and CEO of Culture Commons. He sets the direction of the organisations, leads our national open policy development programmes and builds strategic relationships with key stakeholders across the creative, cultural and research ecosystem.
His published research, policy reports and book chapters span a range of policy areas. Some of his more high profile projects for Culture Commons include a four nations open policy development programme examining ‘cultural devolution’, the scoping of a new National Cultural Data Observatory and the supporting the sector through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before establishing Culture Commons, Trevor was a political advisor to the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party - the now Deputy Prime Minister - as well as the Shadow Minister for Small Business and the Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), advising on landmark Bills and legislation passing through the UK Parliament.
In 2019, Trevor was the senior research at Labour Together, working with Ed Miliband and senior commissioners on the most comprehensive and data driven report on the general election result ever conducted by the party; this work is still influencing policy today.
For the UK left the European Union, Trevor was also Chief of Staff to Labour parliamentarians in the European Parliament, supporting the Vice President of the Culture and Education Committee (CULT) to harmonise creative and cultural policy across the then 28 Member States.
In 2023, the US Ambassador to the UK nominated Trevor to be an International Visiting Leader on the US Department of State’s premier professional development programme. He represented the UK's creative industries in Washington, New York and several other states and is now an active alumni.
Trevor has been a Fellow of The Royal Society of Art for over a decade because of his work as an award-winning theatre director and creative practitioner. He has worked in some of the foremost cultural institutions in the UK, with a particular emphasis on new writing and supporting people from working class background (like his) into creative roles.
He has been a trustee of many arts and cultural organisations over the years, but is currently co-Chair of Stand and Be Counted - a theatre company supporting children, young people and adults seeking refuge, asylum and sanctuary through creative practices.
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