News/Blog
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…
CERG’S “mezzolevel” concept presented at i-PLACE 25 (Key Cities Innovation Network, Media City, Salford)
The Mezzo Level: Imagination as Infrastructure for Local Change Dr Tony D. Sampson — University of Essex / Cultural Engine Research GroupThe Imaginarium Project Conference presentation at https://www.i-place.uk/ This talk asks a simple question: What if imagination becomes part of policy infrastructure? It reframes the climate crisis as neither a macro-level problem for national governance…
Latest on the next Imaginarium event Thurs 12th Feb 2026 at Colchester’s Common Ground. Following on from the first Wild Essex Imaginarium on Sept 27th 2025, we’re pleased to announce a further event on the evening of Thurs 12th Feb 2026 at Colchester’s Common Ground. Our encounters with the neglected corners of urban decay, the rubble-strewn,…
CERG Concepts Referenced in Key Cities Network Parliamentary Dinner Speech
Here’s an excerpt of the speech by Professor Christopher Smith, Executive Chair of the Arts & Humanities Research Council, at the Parliamentary Dinner of the Key Cities Innovation Network. The dinner was hosted by the Key Cities APPG at the House of Commons on Tuesday, 6 May 2025. Prof. Smith was discussing the launch of…
First Wild Essex Imaginarium
Reflections, images and talk slides from the first Wild Essex Imaginarium on 27th Sept 2025, at the Essex Business School (EBS), University of Essex. On Saturday 27th September, 2025, over a 100 attendees, speakers, and performers gathered together in the Essex Business School’s (EBS) Auditorium (University of Essex) for the first Wild Essex Imaginarium. Programme…
Consent form for Wild Essex Imaginarium
Participant Consent Form Thank you for contributing your thoughts and reflections at today’s event. Your feedback is valuable and will help CERG (Cultural Engine Research Group) to understand how the Wild Essex Imaginarium has influenced participants’ thinking, learning, and future actions. Please tick the boxes below to indicate how you consent for your responses (to…