News/Blog
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…
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…