Design for Life: Cities of Learning - seeding lifelong learning ecosystems

The world as it is: fragile, unbalanced, degenerative. The world as it could be: resilient, rebalanced, regenerative. Explore with us how particular perspectives on challenge and change can help build flourishing futures for people, places and the planet. 

In this interactive events series, we share insights from the RSA’s Design for Life mission, including six perspectives we consider core to regenerative change: systemic, imaginative, adaptive, collective, long-time and authentic. How might we invite these perspectives into all our work to transform our economic, social and environmental systems to be more conducive to life? 

We spotlight where these perspectives are being applied within a range of work-in-progress interventions by the RSA, as well as by our Fellows and partners to imagine and pursue better futures. Join us to discuss what we’re doing, what we’re learning, and what shows up in your own changemaking work. 

At this event, Tom Kenyon (Head of Enterprise Design) and Jahnvi Singh (Senior Learning Designer) will share learnings and provocations from our Cities of Learning intervention. Cities of Learning is a movement of people and places committed to nurturing, validating, and connecting learning across towns, cities and regions to support a regenerative economy.

First piloted in 2018, our model to surface and celebrate hidden skills across a place’s ecosystem is now being seeded in 7 cities and regions across the UK, with more than 30,000 learners and 600 organisations co-creating a national web of lifelong learning.

Through Cities of Learning, we incorporate our six Design for Life perspectives to activating lifelong learning as a key lever for place-based, regenerative change. We take a systemic approach to empower local leaders, communities, and individuals to convene as a local collective and adapt our framework to their specific needs. Over the next year, we are on a journey to connect all the Cities & Regions of Learning across the UK to weave a national network of regenerative place-leaders that embed change practices across their place.

Guest speaker and RSA Fellow Heather Walker (Creative Place Development Officer at Tees Valley Combined Authority) will share her learnings from the last year of piloting Cities of Learning across the Tees Valley Region and opportunities and plans for growing the work in the coming years. Tees Valley Region of Learning (TVRoL) is building upon the extensive research and network-building work by the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA)’s Creative Place team and recognising hidden skills opportunities across the Creative and Cultural sectors in the region.