Creatives Now has been an active partner in a pioneering piece of action research led by Leeds Beckett University and Professor Lisa Stevenson, exploring how creative education can be reimagined through the lens of creative dispositions and youth agency. This research places the experiences, insights and voices of young people at its centre, inviting participants to advocate for the educational changes they wish to see and to contribute as consultants in shaping initial teacher training practice across eight international universities.

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Within this programme, Creatives Now has served as the model youth engagement group, demonstrating how arts-based practice can support young people to articulate their perspectives on education with confidence and clarity. Through structured creative sessions, discussion and reflection, young participants have worked in dialogue with teacher educators from universities in the UK and internationally. The project positions young people not as passive recipients of education but as active contributors to its reform.

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The research focuses on embedding creative dispositions — including curiosity, resilience, imagination and critical reflection — within teacher preparation and classroom practice. As consultant to the youth concept group work across the partner universities, the Director of Creatives Now has supported the development of frameworks that foreground youth voice in pedagogic design. This collaboration ensures that lived experience and community-based practice inform academic research and international teacher training conversations.

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Supported by Arts Council Wales, the project has enabled Creatives Now to contribute meaningfully to a transnational dialogue about curriculum innovation and creative learning. By positioning young people as consultants in change, the initiative represents a significant step toward education systems that are more responsive to the creative capacities, ambitions and insights of the learners they serve.