The case for specifying learning environments: Creative and Connected Universities of the Future.

The opportunity to join a University holding a vision of becoming The Connected University, leading a collaborative 2021 City-of-Culture bid, has allowed me to renew my reflections on a research theme that for the last 10 years has occupied me in practical and theoretical terms. Public/academia partnership models have been given a new focus within present-day policy contexts. The current terms relevant for this debate are ‘triple and quadruple helixes’, ‘Open Innovation 2.0’, ‘Mode 3 research’ and ‘connected curriculum’. In the arts, we have also seen an increase of public appetite for process (rather than product), and the 21st century has witnessed a new phenomenon, that which Pierre Luigi Sacco (2014) has labelled Culture 3.0. This paper will explore these concepts in relation to fulfilling visions for truly connected universities, and in my case, in a locality that specifically utilises its own creative sector communities to regenerate itself.