People & Partners

Director: GEOFFREY BROWN

Associate: GILES AGIS

Associate: KEITH HACKETT

Associate: CAROLE BEMANT

(scroll down to read about these individuals)

GEOFFREY BROWN

 

 

 

 

Geoffrey Brown is Director of Euclid, which he founded in 1993.  Euclid provides a range of European and international services and activities, focusing on connections, knowledge and funding.

Geoffrey has unrivalled knowledge of EU funding for the arts and culture sector – Geoffrey was co-ordinator of the UK Cultural Contact Point (promoting the EU’s Culture programme) from 1999-2009, and was subsequently advisor to Visiting Arts, who took over as UK Cultural Contact Point from 2010-2013.  Euclid is well known by the arts & culture sector for its webinars and its seminars and conferences in the UK and in Europe, and in particular on EU funding opportunities, and Geoffrey has been the lead presenter for its CulturEuro seminars and webinars since 2005, which are the UK’s leading events providing information on the broad range of EU funding opportunities for the arts and cultural sector.

Geoffrey has direct practical experience of EU-funded projects – Euclid was a partner in a project funded by the Kaleidoscope programme, the fore-runner to the Culture programme, and more recently was a partner in a Grundtvig funded project (a Lifelong Learning programme).  Geoffrey was also lead consultant for Euclid on a number of evaluation contracts for the European Commission, including for the Raphael and Ariane programmes, also predecessors to the Culture programme.

In addition to leading the UK CCP for 11 years, Geoffrey also led on EUCLID’s contracts as the UK National Co-ordinating Body for the European Year for Intercultural Dialogue 2008 and the UK Contact Point for the EU Europe for Citizens funding programme.

Other EU related projects include consultancy services to Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008, and for the establishment of the Euro-Bulgarian Cultural Centre in Sofia.   Geoffrey’s most recent publication is the overview for “Culture & Development: 20 years after the fall of Communism in Europe”, a conference co-sponsored by the Council of Europe.

Geoffrey continues to work on a range of European & international information, research & consultancy services.  Work in this area includes an international audit for Creative Scotland (2010-11) as well as work for European networks, the British Council and UK arts funding bodies and local authorities.  From 2007-10, Geoffrey led on EUCLID’s contract with Arts Council England to provide international information services to the arts sector in England.

For EUCLID, Geoffrey has also undertaken consultancy and advisory work in the creative and cultural industries, including research and training on behalf of the Council of Europe in several regions of Russia, in Ukraine and Bulgaria, as well as projects in the UK.

Geoffrey has developed and now oversees the Culture.Info and Connexus services which provide arts, cultural and creative industries information from Europe and across the world – news, events calendars, mobility information, funding database, and updates on research and publications.  Culture.Info offers a well-supported Twitter feed (@cultureinfo).  Connexus is a membership scheme offering a range of benefits – a fortnightly newsletter, discounts on special events, and free monthly reports – the first of these, Champions, Winners and Nul Points:comparing the success of European countries in accessing the EU Culture Programme, waspublished in July 2011.

Geoffrey is now developing and piloting the TICK IT service, providing an opportunity for the public to rate and review any and all of their arts, culture, entertainment & sports experiences.

Prior to founding Euclid, Geoffrey was Senior Partner in the Positive Solutions consultancy (now based in Australia), Deputy Director of Merseyside Arts Council, Assistant Director at Darlington Arts Centre, and Executive Director of the Australian Youth Performing Arts Association.  He has also served on a number of boards of arts and cultural organizations including the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT) and the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts.

 

GILES AGIS

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Giles is Director of Brouhaha International, and is perhaps the most successful UK arts & culture applicant to EU funding programmes. Since 2003, Giles has overseen successful applications to the Culture programme (6 small-scale cooperation projects), the new Erasmus+ programme (multiple projects within Key Actions 1 and 2), the Youth in Action programme (over 55 projects) and through the Fundamental Rights and Justice Programme.

He has also been successful with a wide range of international trusts, foundations and government departments including the European Cultural Foundation; Netherlands Performing Arts Fund; European Youth Foundation; Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation; EU Japan Festival; Daiwa Foundation; Anna Lindh Foundation; Commonwealth Youth Foundation; Gulbenkian Foundation; and Bahamas Ministry of Culture, to name but a few.

 

KEITH HACKETT

Keith Hackett has been a consultant who has worked as a sole trader since 1986. He specialises in employment-related research, strategic planning and project financing with cultural organisations and enterprises, higher education institutions, community organisations, governmental bodies and industry consortia, across Europe.

His previous clients have included the European Commission, The Council of Europe, various UK Government departments, IBM, the accountants Pannell Kerr Forster, various UK local authorities and regional arts boards, the Moving Image Development Agency, the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and Arts Council England.  His current contracts include the development of a Field Study Centre on the Jurassic Coast World Heritage site.

He is known best for his detailed knowledge of utilising public and private finances in Europe to grow jobs and generate employment in the less traditional industrial sectors, and he authors and speaks regularly on these topics. In this role his responsibilities have required him to work directly to clients – usually through a senior staff member or CEO. His role has often combined a mix of strategic advice, policy development, finance and fundraising and change management – carried out in a manner where he both leads and enables the participants through the process. In the main he has worked by invitation, with smaller, community-based projects or in the development of specific policy initiatives.

He is also director of a number of commercial companies undertaking various innovative property developments in inner city Liverpool (and elsewhere) associated with creative industry cluster developments. These developments have been specifically structured and located in a manner that improves social cohesion, and develops sustainable employment growth in the creative industries. They have deliberately tested new models of enterprise and financing, and provided new models for adoption and adaptation elsewhere. As a result he has become a specialist in workspace development – particularly associated with new employment sectors and marginal locations. He works in these projects long-term, with a core of collaborators and co-investors. He is also a specialist on project financing – and he led the influential Banking On Culture project.

He is committed to making his civic contribution, and has undertaken considerable voluntary and political activity over the past 40 years. This has included being variously, elected representatives in his trades union (now UNITE), as a City Councillor in Liverpool between 1987 and 1995, and on various Boards and organisations. He is currently Vice-chair of the British Horse Society Merseyside Committee.

 

CAROLE BEMANT

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Carole has direct experience of regional policies, European programmes and projects and seeking cooperation on culture and creative industries.  She is currently engaged with the EC’s Cultural and Creative Agenda 20/20 as we approach the new EC programme cycle starting in 2014.  She has worked as consultant, for instance, on the Interreg programme promoting creative and cultural industries through the EU Structural Funds, and on projects through the Urbact 1/11 capacity building programme involving cities.  This has mainly been with Qec-ERAN, a European Regeneration Areas Network, focused on capacity building, urban policies and regeneration.This meant providing services to 20 plus members and developing new partnerships for individual projects, for instance, UK, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, France, and Poland.  She was official expert for Urbact programme 2007/8, and assisted with the preparation of funding bids and partnerships- e.g.  Udiex, Creative Industries, Clusters and Innovation.

Assisting on funding bids and transnational project plans, for example through Interreg III/IV North West Europe programme in 2009, she worked on CICI: Creative Industries Cultural Innovation negotiating a partnership of seven organizations across EU regions, assisting on their proposals and development of a transnational action plan and communications strategy.  The partnership included public and private organisation in London & Glasgow; Brussels; Paris, the South East Region of Ireland; and Amsterdam.  Her regional analysis identified existing or potential policies and instruments with the scope to support a ‘creative and cultural’ economies, innovation and enterprise.

Carole has an MA from Warwick University, a B.Ed from Reading University, a teaching qualification and TESOL.  She is accredited with assessment of youth and community staff and received a Quality Service Award from Avon County Council.  She is currently a Fellow of the Arts Development Association UK.

Carole’s past projects have also included assisting on projects in Russia – for instance, a youth media training project and assisting in a tour of artists to an international Festival in St Petersburg, Manege.  She has served on committees such as Bristol Media Workshop, Missing Link, Trinity Community Arts and often advises organisations in a voluntary capacity such as Bristol Jazz and Blues Festival 2013.  She is currently researching and preparing material for a potential documentary on the theme of migration.

Carole has supported development at regional and local level and transferred new knowledge and best practice into the policy making and planning process.  She has excellent communication skills in cooperation with colleagues across services and within projects externally throughout wider networks and agencies such as Culture Action Europe and CReATE, public sector networks such as NALGAO UK; and university networks such as Creative Regions.

Carole has experience of working on a range of arts and cultural projects, both as a consultant and as a senior local government officer in the UK where she led on policy and strategic planning and assessed organizations’ funding applications for revenue or capital projects, and also supported organisational development.  She has engaged with integrating policies and services such as community development as well as economic development, education and training.  She has co-operated with a range of partners on planning or delivering projects, for instance, with the Arts Council of England and other local authorities and universities in UK and across Europe on exchange or cooperation projects and coordinated the restructure of arts and cultural services from the County Authority to Unitary Authorities in the West Country UK.

She has delivered workshops and seminars for staff or advised on project planning for a wide range of organisations as well as local authorities and liaised with the Local Government International Bureau, Visiting Arts and local authority associations.  She was secretary of a local government arts officers working group on Europe for three years through what was NACAO, a County Council network monitoring the performance of the Culture programme and preparing the formal ‘opinions’ for EC Culture programme as it developed.  She has worked on the Youth programme supported by the UK National Agency, the British Council and prepared an evaluation framework for youth workers to use in the South West region as well as a training programme.

Carole also has communications, Media and Press relations experience working in broadcasting in her earlier career.  Carole helped establish a BBC partnership for social action broadcasting programme in her earlier career with national charity, CSV which led to the BBC Actionline services.  She has been an advocate for arts and creative sectors and has also served on Campaigning bodies such as The Campaign for Press and Broadcast Freedom.

Carole has assisted Euclid on research and compiling appropriate data or interpreting criteria for the transnational EC structural programmes, for example, Interreg.  This is an opportunity open to creative and cultural sectors and interests at all levels, both public and private sectors.  She is monitoring and reviewing the programme and its 3 strands- cross border, interregional and transnational.  Carole has participated in consultation meetings with the European Commission and Committee of the Regions.

Carole has demonstrated commitment to equality policies in her work.  She initiated ‘disability awareness training’ schemes for management committees and Boards across the arts and cultural sector in the South West and the development of organisations like Disability Arts and Artists First.

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