Culture. Care. Community.
Designed Together.
Civic Curate Oxford is a civic design studio. We work with universities, cultural institutions, funders, and community organisations to redesign how knowledge, culture, and public life connect in Oxford.
We translate lived experience into rigorous civic intelligence and co-curated public projects, so institutions can deliver trusted impact and communities can be sustained rather than exhausted.
Join as a curator
Be part of a hands-on learning lab where students and creatives learn to turn ideas into civic practice.
You can propose an idea, or join an existing idea, or help shape one together with others.
You’ll co-design projects, learn curatorial methods, and help shape the cultural future.
You don’t need prior experience in design, art, or curation.
Join as a partner
Bring a challenge, question, or idea to the table.
We’ll work with you to explore how your research, programme, or organisation can connect more deeply with the people it serves.
You don’t need a fixed brief. Just the curiosity to see how collaboration might open new ground.
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Not sure where you fit?
Write to us at hello@civiccurate.com
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About Civic Curate
We help partners and participants turn complex civic challenges into tangible experiences that generate both understanding and change.
We, as a civic intermediary, design better flows of evidence and lived experience, funding and community capacity, cultural imagination and real implementation.
Oxford is our first lab. What we learn here becomes part of a wider Civic Curate network that can grow into other places.
Who We Partner With
We partner with leaders and organisations who feel a gap between their public mission and their public's experience.
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You may be a good fit if you:
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sense that your engagement work is not trusted or not reaching the people it should
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want to move beyond one-off events into long-term community relationships
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need stronger, more credible impact and learning
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are navigating public risk or friction (planning, service redesign, cultural renewal, research implementation)
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want a structured way to pay for and work with lived experience ethically
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Partners typically include:
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university divisions, research centres, GLAM, and impact/engagement teams
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museums, cultural institutions, and creative infrastructure
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councils, NHS and public bodies working on place-based challenges
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foundations and funders backing community-led, systemic change
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alliances or third-sector leaders coordinating multiple actors
What Make Us Unique​
We don't operate like a consultancy or a campaign agency.
We design the conditions for inquiry, care, and collaboration to flourish.
Our work brings people, ideas, and practices into meaningful relation, so understanding grows from within the process, not imposed from outside.
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Our practice is civic, reflective, and grounded in lived experience.
We follow the life of a question.
Each project is a living conversation between research, community, and culture, where participation itself becomes a form of thinking.
Through this curatorial method, we help organisations move beyond engagement to cultivate civic intelligence: the collective capacity to understand, imagine, and act together.
Get in touch
We’d love to hear from you.
Whether you have a question, an idea, or a challenge you’re trying to make sense of.
Tell us what you’re working on, what community you want to reach, or what connection feels missing.