Creative Futures Mansfield: Neurodivergent Young People, Aspiration Rising and Civic Cultural Opportunity – Collaboratory Research Hub 2027 PhD Studentship

Mansfield faces persistent inequalities in education, skills, employment and opportunity. More than half of its neighbourhoods fall within England’s most deprived 20% for education, skills and training, health and disability, and employment. These factors all interconnect for many young people who find themselves not in employment, education, or training (NEET), demonstrating a need for research to better understand the needs of local young people.

Through programmes delivered by Mansfield District Council’s Cultural Services, practice-based evidence has shown the potential benefits of engaging local autistic young people in in-depth creative practices to communicate their experiences of Mansfield, and to then imagine hopeful futures and new worlds for themselves. However, more evidence is needed to understand the potential for this activity to positively influence young people’s futures, and what is required from wider networks of local authority services to support this.

This PhD project will investigate how sustained creative participation can enable neurodivergent young people aged 14–21 to explore interests, articulate aspirations and imagine a wider range of possible futures. The project will work inclusively across neurodivergent experiences, including autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia/developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and Tourette’s syndrome, recognising that identities, strengths and support needs vary within and across these groups.

Nottingham Trent University, the University of Nottingham and Mansfield District Council Cultural Services have shaped the project around a shared question emerging from creative work already taking place in Mansfield: what can sustained, creative participation make possible, and what role can civic cultural provision play in supporting those possibilities?

Creativity sits at the centre of the research question and design. Through repeated creative workshops and mixed-methods research, participants will explore identity, interests, place and possible futures through making and expression. The research will examine relationships between creative participation, agency, confidence, belonging, future orientation and perceived opportunity.

Future orientation refers to how young people anticipate their future lives unfolding. “Possible futures” encompasses identities, roles and forms of participation they can imagine for themselves, including education, training and employment. “Wider opportunities” refers to the cultural, educational, social and employment pathways through which those futures might become more attainable.

The project takes a neurodiversity-affirming approach. It does not assume that neurodivergent young people lack ambition but investigates how they understand their possibilities and how social, educational and cultural opportunity structures enable or constrain them. The PhD will produce new academic knowledge about creativity, neurodivergence and future orientation, alongside evidence, creative resources and partnership principles for Mansfield District Council and cultural and community organisations.

This project has been co-created with and is supervised by researchers from Nottingham Trent University, the University of Nottingham, and partners at Mansfield District Council Cultural Services. The successful candidate for this project will be enrolled at Nottingham Trent University.

Project Aims and Objectives

The PhD will use a longitudinal mixed-methods, participatory and practice-led design, integrating creative research with qualitative and quantitative methods. Through this work, the project will:

• Engage 50–64 neurodivergent young people in the research, alongside parents/carers, creative practitioners and facilitators.

• Carry out a longitudinal evaluation of the Mansfield As We See It and Neurodivergent Futures programmes with 6–8 historic participants and use creative and participatory methods to co-design the workshop programme.

• Bring together a separate Young Creatives Advisory Panel of 4–6 neurodivergent young people who will co-design activities, media, accessibility and participation arrangements, enabling meaningful participation.

• Deliver and collect data through an iterative, creative workshop programme with two cohorts of young people aged 14–17 years and 18–21 years. Each cohort will receive approximately 12 hours of creative activity, scheduled with Mansfield Museum and project partners. Activities may include drawing, storytelling, model-making, performance, animation, sound, digital making, immersive projection and optional XR or AI tools.

• Integrate findings across the longitudinal evaluation, workshops and quantitative measures. Analysis will attend to differences across neurodivergent experiences, recognising that accessibility needs and outcomes may vary between participants. Participants and partners will contribute to interpretation before completion of the PhD thesis, practical resources and recommendations.

• Ensure accessible information, ongoing consent/assent, sensory and communication adjustments, and separate permissions for recording and public sharing underpins all phases.

What is Collaboratory?

Collaboratory is a pioneering research programme, led by Universities for Nottingham and the Leicester Universities Partnership, that places community knowledge and experience at the heart of research. This eight-year initiative is pioneering a new approach to collaboration, working closely with local communities and community-focused organisations to develop and deliver research that addresses the needs and priorities of local communities.

1. Jennifer Bell (NTU), jen.bell@ntu.ac.uk

2. Danielle Ropar (UoN), Danielle.Ropar@nottingham.ac.uk

3. Ian Dearman (Mansfield District Council), idearman@mansfield.gov.uk