News/Blog
Free Imaginarium Publication Download
If you’re interested in the ideas behind CERG’s Imaginarium project, here’s the underpinning article just published in KCIN’s Innovation Ecosystems: How innovation drives resilience and growth in our cities and communities. https://www.i-place.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Innovation-Ecosystems-April-2026.pdf Image from the publication: Neighbourhoods in Jaywick Watercolour by Simon Poulter
Book Now!
You can now book a place at the four events CERG have co-organised with Sustainable Uttlesford during the Big Green Festival in Saffron Walden this June. BGF presents 10 days of district-wide community events that highlight local sustainable projects. FRIDAY 5 JUNE Looking Back and Legacy: Uttlesford Zero Carbon and Community Action 18:15 – 20:40…
Imaginarium at the Big Green Festival
CERG are co-curating 4 core events at UDC’s Big Green Festival (5-13th June) FRIDAY 5 JUNE – Looking Back and Legacy: Uttlesford Zero Carbon and Community Action 18:15 – 20:40, Uttlesford District Council Chambers, Saffron Walden This event blends storytelling with strategic reflection on local achievements through the Zero Carbon Communities Fund, while looking ahead…
CERG Researcher Takes Policy Framework to House of Commons
Imagination as Policy Infrastructure: CERG Researcher Takes Policy Framework to House of Commons CERG co-founder, Dr Tony D. Sampson, Reader in Digital Communications at the University of Essex Business School, will present a new policy framework at the House of Commons on 29 April, arguing that imagination must be treated as essential infrastructure in tackling…
Maldon District Creative Gathering at Datum Attitude Brewery (Heybridge), 30th March 2026
The first Maldon District Creative Gathering took place at Datum Attitude Brewery in Heybridge on the 30th March. This was a chance for creative practitioners to get together, network and share some insights into their practice, events and programmes. Representation was from across all ‘corners’ of the District – Burnham-on-Crouch, Tollesbury, Mayland and Maldon. The…
Reflections on Neighbourhood and Creative Health Event – Maldon District 13th March 2026
Representatives from across the Maldon District gathered for a session exploring the upcoming strategic development of Neighbourhood Health Plans, and how this could create opportunities for creative health activities as part of the wider NHS move towards ‘prevention’. There is significant evidence of the positive impact of participation in creative, heritage and environmental activities on…
Video of CERG’s Tony Sampson Discussing the Imaginarium and Mezzolevel at i-PLACE Conference (26-27/11/2025)
In this i-PLACE talk, Dr Tony Sampson, Reader in Digital Communications at University of Essex, sets out a new way of thinking about how policy is designed, translated, and implemented. The presentation introduces the concept of the mezzo-level: an intermediate scale of governance operating between macro-level strategy and micro-level lived experience. Tony argues that many…
A Reflection on the Imaginarium’s Beth Chatto’s Meanwhile Garden: The Urban Wild and Other Disturbances
A Reflection on Beth Chatto’s Meanwhile Garden: The Urban Wild and Other Disturbances A sold out evening with the Cultural Engine Research Group’s Imaginarium, on 12th February 2026 at the Commons Café, The Minories, Colchester, Essex. The evening opened with Stuart Bowditch’s performance of “Homage to the Waiting Room.” Given Colchester’s history of former “meanwhile”…
Funding Success
Sharing the good news from the Essex Business School and School of Life Sciences at the University of Essex that CERG’s joint interdisciplinary application to the Innovation Fund has just been approved. The project, which is… “an outcome of Dr Tony Sampson’s (EBS and project lead) and Professor Tom Cameron’s (Life Sciences) collaboration with the…
CERG’s Imaginarium/mezzo-concept introduced at major Salford conference
How do places reinvent themselves successfully? University of Essex Essex Business School Centre for Coastal Communities took part in the inaugural i-PLACE 25 conference, organised by the @Key Cities Innovation Network, which gathered university leaders, councils, industry partners and innovation specialists over two days to explore how partnership and collaboration between civic institutions, academia and…