At the end of July, we will be establishing Arts Connect as an independent organisation, leaving the University of Wolverhampton who have been our parent organisation for the past 14 years.

This will enable us to build upon:

• The outcomes of our research and development in teacher and artist professional development, especially in the visual arts. This practice has been crystallised through learning from our Teacher Development Fund programme, Classroom as Studio, supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
• Our training and partnership work with regional Virtual Schools and the cultural sector to benefit children in care.
• Our community-based research activity, working with colleagues at the University of Wolverhampton, through creative methods.
• Our ambition to lead and support system change for young people in the arts with place focussed partnerships and through devising new programmes and activities.

After many years as members of the University this is a significant moment of change for us. We have enjoyed working closely with many brilliant people in the School of Art and across the University, and we are sorry to be leaving them as direct colleagues.

The purpose of this change is to establish new foundations to sustain and evolve our work for the next decade as we contribute to a national effort to re-prioritise the arts for young people across many areas of their lives.

We are as always very open to new collaborations and to working with fellow travellers so please do be in touch if you have an idea.

We’ll let everyone know more about our future work via our website and on our social media platforms.

If you do want to carry on hearing from us or would like to contact us directly about our plans after 31st July 2026, then please do email us at our new address: info@artsconnect.co.uk