Exploring Imaginative Curriculum: New research centre hosts first information session
On 1 December 2025, the School of Education at the University of Leeds hosted the first information session for the Imaginative Curriculum Research and Scholarship Centre (ICRSC).
Held in the Coach House, Hillary Place, in an collaboration with the School of Earth, Environment and Sustainability, the School of Politics and International Studies and the School of Design, this event marked an exciting step toward creating a vibrant hub for imaginative and creative curriculum practices, research, and scholarship.
This session, created through interdisciplinary collaboration across the University, served to introduce the vision and distinctiveness of the Centre, share preliminary ideas and plans, and invite participants to contribute their thoughts to help shape future activities. The Centre aims to bring together educators, researchers, and students from across the education sector to explore imaginative, creative, and sustainable curriculum practices, scholarship, and research. It welcomes contributions from those working in higher education, schools, further education, community organisations and other learning contexts.
The session began with opportunities for participants to get to know each other and share what brought them to the event and special thanks go out to attendees for walking around, mingling and chatting with somebody new. Attendees learned about the Centre’s vision to become a globally recognised hub for cross-disciplinary research and innovation in imaginative curriculum design. What organisers identified was how attendees adopted and worked with the idea that this centre is community led and aims to bring people who may be apart geographically or disciplinary but very close at heart. One attendee called it “our hub”, which was heartwarming for the organisers who had dedicated much hard work in the initial stages of this new centre.
One idea discussed during the workshop was the idea to give space in the curriculum, represented by a blank slice of pizza, to allow for imagination and cocreation with students, colleagues and other stakeholders. Participants were also asked to share their views through a poll on what we individually and collectively understand when referring to curriculum. The results brought forth through this interactive session were fascinating and provided valuable insight for future work from this centre.
You can follow the latest updates from the ICRSC, headed by Professor Chrissi Nerantzi, by following their page on LinkedIn, or by following the School of Education on LinkedIn or BlueSky.
