Clore Leadership Programme

Overview

The Clore Fellowship is a tailored programme of leadership development. They aim to enrich and transform cultural practice and engagement through developing the individuals’ leadership capacity.

Each year, wthey award places to around 25 exceptional leaders from a range of specialisms across the cultural sector including the visual and performing arts, museums, libraries, archives and heritage, film and digital media, cultural policy and practice.

They provide a number of core activities and a loose framework to support your development as a cultural leader, which takes place between September and the following July.

The Fellowship is self-guided, so you’ll need to be highly motivated and deeply curious. It is primarily experiential, underpinned by contemporary leadership theories. You’ll learn from the experiences of guest speakers and your peers, and gain insights about yourself from practical workshops and through your secondment, mentoring and coaching. You’ll extend your knowledge and understanding of the wider cultural sector through dialogue, inquiry, study visits, conferences and meetings, and increase your skills and acumen through courses and individual training as part of your unique development plan.

Clore Fellows come primarily from the UK and each year they offer a number of International Fellowships to exceptional individuals from prioritised countries outside of the UK, including Brazil, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Jordan, Mexico and South Africa. They work with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council to identify the areas for priority. You can read more about their International Fellowships here.

The exact programming and topics covered change from year to year. Click here for some of the content areas they tend to cover.

In addition to shared learning activities, each Fellow undertakes a customised programme of personal and professional development. The structure of each Fellowship depends on the needs of the individual and includes:

Each fellowship will include the following:

• A 360° leadership profile.
• Either: an extended secondment in the UK in a cultural organisation. It is normally in an organisation or field very different to your normal workplace or practice. You’ll be working on a live project which is set by the organisation.
• Or an extended period of research supervised by a University in the UK. The topic for research is decided by the Fellow in collaboration with the Clore Leadership Programme and the Arts And Humanities Research Council.
• Bespoke learning opportunities to support your leadership development
• Two residential leadership courses
• Individually-selected learning through conferences, courses and study visits.
• Working with a mentor and a coach.
• Skills-based non-residential workshops designed by the Clore Leadership Programme.
• A written provocation paper.
• Opportunities to remain engaged with the Programme through additional research or development opportunities such as Clore Plus masterclasses and access to the Clore Alumni Network.
• An event to mark your completion of the Fellowship Programme.
• Opportunity to undertake a period of supervised research after your Fellowship has been completed. If you have not already undertaken a period of supervised research as part of your Fellowship you may submit a proposal for additional funding. If successful the research will be undertaken after you have completed the programme.

Eligibility

To be eligible for a Fellowship, you should:

• Have an innovative approach, be open to learning and have the desire to develop as a cultural leader.
• Be in a position to influence practice and/or policy and effect change in your organisation, sector and beyond, through your work as an artist or cultural professional.
• Have significant experience of leading people, projects, organisations or practice either in a professionally paid or voluntary capacity in the cultural sector.
• Be comfortable with managing budgets.
• Demonstrate a deep commitment to, passion for and understanding of the cultural sector.
• Meet the additional eligibility criteria for any specialist Fellowships applied for (see Types of Fellowships Available).
• Have an understanding of the broader sector and wider context of culture.
• Have a minimum of seven years’ experience of professional or voluntary practice, and be able to demonstrate aptitude for leading and effecting significant change through your work. The period of seven years does not need to be consecutive.

Highly qualified candidates from other sectors may be considered providing they demonstrate a deep commitment to culture and to playing a leading role within it.