Background.
COVID-19 is the most challenging global public health crisis we have faced for decades, with an underlining economic crisis projected to have long-lasting impacts. While there has been a rush to gather data on the impact of Covid-19 on the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) (Comunian & England, 2020) there has been limited investigation so far into the specific impacts of the pandemic and associated restrictions and social distancing measures on academic practices, teaching and learning in creative higher education (HE). Covid-19 has had an unprecedented impact on the HE sector. The disruption caused has forced universities to adapt quickly, challenged existing models in teaching, researching and learning and pushed academics to implement new approaches and ways of thinking. Many institutions moved courses online (CHEAD, 2020), which has created tensions between what are considered ‘reasonable’ or ‘unrealistic’ models for creative teaching, learning and engagement (Gunn, 2020). Some of these measures will be a temporary ‘fix’ during the crisis, while others will radically influence the future of HE for years to come. We also know that some of these changes have negatively impacted some staff and students more than others with regards to home-working, access to technology and precarious careers, reflecting broader social economic, geographical and technological inequalities associated with and exacerbated by the pandemic (Blundell et al., 2020). As such, COVID-19 presents us with a timely opportunity to take stock of the changes that have occurred but also to reconceptualize and reconfigure creative HE practices, including reflections on potentially more equitable and accessible futures. ​Creative disciplines (Comunian et al., 2011)i (from animation to classical music, from choreography to glass making) offer a great range of diversity and media to allow a broader consideration of how creative HE is currently reshaping its teaching, research and learning processes. The way practice is shaped – especially in relation to digital upskilling (Comunian, Faggian & Jewell, 2015) and a potential digital turn (Flew, Ren & Wang, 2019) – might also play a role in the development of the CCIs workforce in the years to come as these disciplines represent key talent pipelines (Comunian, Faggian & Jewell, 2014). Creative HE also provides integral infrastructure for cultural and creative ecologies (Comunian & Gilmore, 2016); building networks, providing venues and facilities for creative production, public engagement, research and knowledge exchange, as well as being key local employers (Clews & Clews, 2011). Universities act as civic anchors in the community (Chatterton, 2000), and in the cultural context, they are enablers of cultural participation, public discourse and social enterprises (Comunian & Brook, 2019). The CCIs were regarded as an important sector for industrial growth following the previous recession, and the desire for an increased, skilled workforce has been lobbied and celebrated at the policy level. Covid-19 has however exposed the reliance on precarious employment models to the attention of policy and the media as a ‘risk factor’ (Comunian & England, 2020), with significant implications for sector inclusion, workforce diversity and the future sustainability of the industry (Eikhof, 2020). The creative sector is itself exemplary of emergent trends in the general labour market (Brook 2015; Throsby 2012) and creative graduates can be seen as ‘weathervanes of current changes’ (Comunian and Brook, 2019). We therefore believe creative subjects represent an interesting context to reflect on different modes and needs in HE and how these are/have been challenged by the impact of Covid-19. 

Call for papers
The special issue aims to capture the impact of Covid-19 on Creative HE and more specifically on creative subject degrees taught at HE level internationally. This extends the UK-focused Creative HE Covid project run by the guest editors on the impact of the pandemic on Creative HE during the initial lock-down period. We aim to capture the experiences and strategies of academics, practitioners involved in the teaching, research, planning and management of these subject areas, and their students, with perspectives sought from across the globe and creative HE disciplines i . This Special Issue invites a wide range of contributions that provide critical reflection on changes and challenges to Creative HE associated with Covid-19, including short and longer term impacts, what has been learnt and policy and management implications. Contributions can be in the form of empirical and theoretical research papers, critical practice-based reflections, case studies and (auto)ethnographic accounts. The papers presented in this special issue are intended to act as valuable resources in the immediate future for academics and practitioners that could also influence future practices and learning in the CCIs more broadly. We welcome papers on the impact of Covid 19 on Creative HE that explore, but are not limited to:
• The impact of Covid-19 on academic practice, teaching and learning across different creative subjects in HEIs
• The potential and downfalls of online learning in creative HE and specific limitations / differences in online work specifically in relation to creative subjects
• Creative solutions for creative subjects teaching during Covid-19, new modes and tools for engagement (online and offline) and opportunities the crisis has produced/promoted
• Changes to employability/professional development teaching in Creative HE and career challenges for creative graduates • Transformations in digital and studio/making spaces
• Emerging forms of creative practice in relation to digital upskilling and/or a potential digital turn
• How Covid-19 has been incorporated into creative projects and topics within the curriculum • New/changed practices of HE engagement with local communities and arts and cultural organisations during Covid-19
• Partnerships and collaborations within Creative HE to address the health, social and economic impacts of the pandemic and associated projects, innovations and knowledge exchange activities
​• The experiences of creative students or staff both during and following lockdown(s) in response to changes to their studies and working lives • Inequalities in Creative HE emerging from and exacerbated by the pandemic as experienced by students or staff • Policy responses to Covid-19 that impact Creative HE

The deadline for full papers is 1 st July 2021
Authors should send full papers to the editors by close of business 1st July 2021 at creativeHEcovid@gmail.com.
Following an initial review, authors of selected papers will then be invited to submit to the journal. Submissions should contain a title, author(s) name(s) and affiliations, a short bio for each author (150 words), an abstract (200 words) and manuscript (maximum 7,000 words including references). In preparing your manuscript, please follow the guidelines for the Arts & Humanities in Higher Education https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/AHH
​If you have any questions about the special issue in advance of the deadline, please contact Lauren England (lengland001 at dundee.ac.uk) 

We are nearing the end of the first semester of blended teaching within a school of architecture at a UK based university. It has been an epic semester, both in the lead up to the academic start and the whole way through. We have had to try to mix our face to face and digital teaching approaches, be flexible for students who have not returned to university (so are in different time zones and have multiple constraints with their own families being around), those that have had to go into isolation and those that have actually contracted COVID 19, support students emotionally who are feeling isolated and depressed, and be available for those students who are desperate for face to face contact. This is all in parallel to managing my own anxiety around face to face teaching, contracting COVID and the impact this would have on my own personal situation, being a mother of a primary school aged child and a partner to an Architect who is working full time in a big multi-disciplinary UK based practice, from home. It has become apparent over the semester that those of us with any dependents have felt more anxious about face to face teaching, with the initial lock down and the closure of schools increasing the levels of stress on those households, as parents juggled workload and leave to mind their kids until the schools opened again (like many families across the world).
Despite all the constraints and in the spirit of creatively responding to complexity, we have embraced this context and done our best to make this as great an experience for the students as we can. This has meant learning new digital communication tools which previously had been underutilised, new collaborative mapping and research tools like Miro, and trying to use apps like Google Classroom etc. to ensure improved communication.  Where previously we could rely on studio culture to do much of this work for us, we have had to find ways to constantly keep the students informed about what it is we would like them to be doing each day, how we are meeting, when we are meeting and where all the various pre-recorded lectures can be found, more similar to a remote teaching platform than ever before. It has meant that being prepared has become important but being flexible and adaptable each week is imperative to survive the wide variety of situations that we each find ourselves in at that moment.
As the full time staff of the university are overwhelmed with extra work as it has been difficult to manage the extra commitments that we have had to embrace to ensure that we give as equal a learning experience to each student as we can, and attempt to match the previous cohorts experiences too, we are all struggling to maintain the workload to achieve this. Training for the various extra digital tools has been made available but always on top of the extra work that we have been doing to achieve flexibility in our teaching approaches.
Each studio has endeavoured to create a context where students get to know each other and learn from each other about work ethics and basic design tools that would have been easier to learn with people around 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This has meant trying to create buddy groups, support drop in zoom chats etc. Perhaps the partial closure of the studios will mean a change in the 24 hour a day culture finally, where the expectations on students to work all the hours of the day can be adapted to a healthier version. But it seems that the pressure is simply mounting on those students who cannot afford to buy new laptops on which to work at home, and buy the software required to represent their designs using software that they are expected to learn for gaining a job after they graduate.
Previously students would have been able to use the studios to make models and do hand drawings which could be left in the designated areas, which of course is no longer possible as we are restricted to using space more specifically, related to shared work space requirements and risk assessments. The students’ accommodation is limiting these outputs as well, as they live in small student rooms and/or share houses with many other students who are all struggling with similar constraints, therefore building a model is almost impossible. 
In previous years, the students have noted that the annual field trip experience has been the best part of that academic year, and within the COVID context this has meant that travelling as a studio group has been impossible. To try to achieve immersion into a context for a design programme, some studios have endeavoured virtual field trips. In the studio I teach we spent the whole week in groups working on collaborative Miro boards, reading books about the context, listening to pre-recorded interviews, and watching various films. It was a great week, and the students learned loads, and they finally managed to collaborate across the year groups. However, this was all done over and above the normal commitments for teaching, without any compensation. The studio chooses to situate the project on a site in an international context which means the onus is on the tutors to manage this within the hours they are allocated.
Luckily, I am very passionate about teaching design, and I continue to do as much as I can to learn new ways of working and teaching. However, the universities do leverage our time, our passion and commitment, as we continue to do way more than we should to support the students to achieve great things!

Blog written by Kate Maple, Curator, Showcase Gallery Solent University

​The Showcase Gallery is part of Solent University’s School of Art, Design & Fashion and is a participatory exhibition space in the heart of Southampton with a focus on reaching communities with less voice in the cultural sector.  As a University public facing space, our entire programme of exhibition and events, some of it two years in the planning, has been decimated in a heartbeat by Covid-19.  The uniqueness of this experience, across all cultural venues and organisations across the board, is extraordinary and whilst there is a very real fight for survival, there is also a unique opportunity to rethink how we might balance recovery with reinvention.  It has already changed how we communicate and the Art To Go project was an example of this change in practice.

Whilst many venues were going publicly online with great cultural content, Southampton City Council noted that children in care did not necessarily have easy access to computers and were therefore at risk of being excluded from participation.  Thus the  Art To Go project was devised as a rapid response to address the Council’s concerns and enable the gallery to positively and proactively reach out directly to local young people.  

​Artist Joe Ross devised the concept of filling a pizza box full of art materials and arts activities to be handed directly to young people via key workers and carers who could deliver the boxes safely.  With a callout to other cultural venues to participate, what emerged was a full box with a rich array of activities from galleries, theatres and film organisations, with all the necessary art materials to participate in the tasks.  A vital part of the project were the non-arts organisations such as No Limits and the Council’s Violent Reduction Unit (VRU) who had the infrastructure and expertise to deliver to areas in most need.  

​After an initial 150 boxes were delivered and demand outstripped supply, Art To Go expanded thanks to extra funding from the VRU, Artswork and Arts Council.  Due to the oddness of lockdown, the gallery team had their homes transformed into mini cottage industries filled with paper, arts and crafts materials and numerous pizza boxes stacked up against walls. The evaluation of the project is still ongoing but well over 500 boxes were delivered, with key workers distributing boxes to children in care, local police giving them to young people affected by crime and submissions for our Life in Lockdown window exhibition still rolling in.  There was great investment by all parties involved in the benefit of culture and creative practice to support mental health.

In Southampton, the Covid-19 crisis opened doors and channels of communications directly and rapidly with a decisive shift towards collaborative working between arts and non-arts organisations. With the future uncertain, changing our practice is not only desired but essential. The more imaginative, adaptive and collaborative we can be, the better we can support all people who are at risk of their voices not being heard, at a time of crisis and beyond.
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