Creative Facilitation Unit
Mary Robson
Senior Creative Facilitator
Mary is a facilitator with extensive experience in creative practice, from theatre design to community-based arts in health and education. She is highly skilled in the use of arts-based and experimental approaches to collaboration.
Johanna Thren
Creative Facilitation Specialist
Johanna is a facilitator and post-doctoral researcher with expertise in participatory research methods, ethnography and evaluation.
What is creative facilitation?
Essentially experimental, creative facilitation brings diverse groups of people together to collaborate, take risks and form meaningful connections.
The Creative Facilitation Unit in the Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities is led by Mary Robson. They support the development of new research projects, partnerships and collaborative working practices.
The Creative Facilitation Unit also aims to equip individuals with skills in creative facilitation and participatory approaches through training programmes and mentorship.
Read: Creative Facilitation Report
A report outlining the development and impact of creative facilitation in interdisciplinary and cross sector research settings, as practiced by Mary Robson at Durham University.
Listen: Creative Facilitation Podcast
Mary Robson and participants in The Fundamentals of Creative Facilitation reflect on the value of creative and participatory approaches and what they learned from the training.
Train: Creative Facilitation Training
Find out about our training courses in creative facilitation and participatory approaches at the Institute for Medical Humanities, Durham University.
Testimonials
We have invited some reflections on the use of Creative Facilitation in a range of research and organisational contexts.
Please click on the below quotes to read the full written interviews.
Our experiences have shown us the value of creative facilitation in interdisciplinary research settings.
Creative facilitation has been transformative in the way that we enable research culture progress at Durham University.
It uncovered new insights and experiences that may have remained hidden had we used a more conventional approach.
One of the biggest benefits of creative facilitation was how well it encouraged contributions from a wide range of voices and helped flatten the hierarchies that are so common in academic and research environments.
The use of creative facilitation techniques made the sessions enjoyable and fun. For staff, the group sessions were also a positive experience, providing a new and refreshing way to work.
The methods encouraged peer learning and mutual respect, reduced hierarchies within the room, and created trust among participants.