Profile

Title: Mrs
First Name: Hilary
Surname: Nicoll
Position: Senior Lecturer
Telephone: +44 (0) 1224 263701
Email:

Hilary Nicoll is a Lecturer in Creative Futures and co-directs the Look Again creative unit at Gray’s School of Art where she develops strategy and secures funding for a range of sectoral development projects such as Cultivate, Create Networks and the Look Again Festivals 2016-2019.

She co-developed the Creative Entrepreneurship post graduate short course which she runs in partnership with the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Group (EIG) at RGU and is developing research in this field.

Prior to joining academia, she worked for 20 years in leadership roles in the arts and cultural sector across the UK, including as Director of Scottish Sculpture Workshop (2003-2010), consultant to Creative Scotland (2010-2011) and Scotland Project Manager for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation/Creative Scotland ‘ArtWorks: Developing Practice in Participatory Settings’ special initiative 2011-2015. She was a Governor of Hospitalfield Arts from 2012-2019 and is currently a Board member and Chair of the Arts and Enterprise Committee of Wasps Artists Studios.

Duties and Responsibilities

Hilary is responsible for delivering the Creative Futures programme to undergraduates across all departments at Gray’s, which focusses on personal and professional development and preparation for life after art school. She also co-developed the post graduate level short course in Creative Entrepreneurship which she delivers in partnership with the Entrepreneurship and Innovation group at RGU. She is interested in entrepreneurship in the creative sector and developing new models and pedagogies that ‘fit’, and how this can impact on the creative city as a complex system.

Academic Background

  • BA (Hons) Painting, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, 1988
  • Masters, Fine Art Printmaking, University of Brighton, 1990
  • PG Dip, Cultural Policy and Management, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, 1994

Research Interests

Research interests cover creative entrepreneurship education and the role of entrepreneurship education in Creative and Cultural Industries, interdisciplinarity and signature pedagogies of entrepreneurship in the creative sector, Creative Cities, the role of creative sector development in regeneration.

Current Research

Creative Resilience, Art Adapts, CHEAD, Nov 2020. Presenter

https://www.chead.ac.uk/events/creative-resilience-art-adapts/

Bill Gibb Symposium, Aberdeen Art Gallery, March 2021. Co-Chair

https://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/AAGM/whats-aberdeen-art-galleries-and-museums/fashion-fantasy-and-collaboration-legacy-bill-gibb

 ‘Harnessing our Potential: Interdisciplinary Research in the Creative and Cultural Industries’  University of Derby Sept 2022. Presenter

Funding

From Creative Scotland:

  • Look Again festivals 2016-2019
  • Cultivate 2018
  • Cultivate/Activate 2018-2020
  • Create Networks 2019-20
  • Beyond British Art Show 2021

Other funds such as UIF and SFC to support initiatives such as Wonderland Festival 2022

External / Professional Roles

Publications

Media Coverage