Building the Future of Creative Leadership

Pathways Not Projects is a bold new national initiative, a four-year programme redefining how the UK’s creative industries discover, develop, and sustain talent.

Instead of short-term fixes, we’re building long-term, inclusive pathways for young people from underrepresented backgrounds, including those with care experience, low income, or invisible disabilities.

Building on our Future Creative Leaders work, Pathways Not Projects transforms a proven model into a nationwide initiative to reshape opportunities across culture.

At the Heart: A Digital Platform for Change

At the centre of the initiative is an open-source digital platform, co-created with young people themselves.

This platform will:

• Enable organisations to track impact, share insights, and embed youth voice at every stage.
• Offer a transparent, scalable, and human-centred tool for reshaping leadership ecosystems across the creative industries.

It’s technology twinned with the act of cultural reimagination.

Youth Leadership in Action

A cornerstone of Pathways Not Projects is the creation of youth steering groups within cultural and civic institutions nationwide.

These groups ensure that young people are not only consulted but are actively leading:

• Governance and decision-making
• Programming and content creation
• Audience co-design and business strategy

From immersive tech training to leadership development, Pathways Not Projects provides comprehensive support for the next generation of creative leaders guided by Lighthouse alongside national partners across culture, education, and technology.

Programme Vision

We are building:

• A scalable, open-source digital platform connecting young creatives with youth-focused organisations
• A collaborative network uniting academia, cultural institutions, and youth leadership
• A radical new model of inclusive innovation to reimagine how culture grows and who gets to lead

Together, we’re developing pathways, not projects, to ensure lasting, equitable change.

Programme Goals

Innovation

Develop and scale an open-source digital platform that blends emerging technology with inclusive design.

Research & Knowledge Creation

Co-produce research with academic and community partners to generate new insight, policy, and practice.

Leadership Development

Build a thriving network of Future Creative Leaders from underrepresented communities, equipped to shape the future of the creative sector.

Programme Outcomes (by 2029)

By the end of the Fellowship, we will have:

• Trained 100+ Future Creative Leaders
• Built and shared an inclusive, evidence-based language model for public use
• Launched youth-led, nationally embedded steering groups
• Published research influencing policy and practice in creative workforce development
• Created a lasting, replicable framework for systemic, sector-wide change

Why It Matters

The UK’s creative economy contributes over £100 billion annually, yet systemic barriers persist.

Young people from Global Majority and working-class communities continue to be unrepresented in leadership, education, and opportunities.

Many organisations are stretched thin by:

• Administrative overload
• Rapid technological change
• Digital safeguarding and data protection challenges
• Deep inequalities in access and representation

These aren’t just social issues. They’re innovation issues.

If creativity is our strength, equity must be our strategy.

We can and must do better.

Future Creative Leaders: From Pilot to Pathway

The Future Creative Leaders (FCL) programme, the foundation of Pathways Not Projects, is the result of nearly a decade of research and experimentation.

FCL redefines youth engagement by sharing power and resources directly with young people. It enables them to:

• Govern & curate
• Create & budget
• Evaluate & lead

Launched as a pilot in 2024/25, FCL handed over decision-making for city-centre public art spaces to young creatives: a first-of-its-kind model in the UK.

Our approach prioritises process over output, nurturing exploration, dialogue, and collaboration, while compensating and crediting all community contributions, skills, and knowledge.

From 2026 onwards, FCL will be rolled out nationwide as an integral part of Pathways Not Projects, creating a continuous and sustainable leadership pathway for the next generation of changemakers.

Join Us

Together, we can build a creative future that’s open, inclusive, and led by those who’ve been excluded the longest.

Pathways Not Projects, because real change isn’t a project.

It’s a pathway.