NET+ Centre Creative Fellowship TOPIC 3

Creative Fellowship Host: Penny Marno, Senior Specialist (Health and Social Science) , Natural England 

Fellowship Title: Re-imagining a nature and health service: A Creative Fellowship in Nature and Health 

Fellowship Topic Summary  

Natural England are developing a Nature and Health Action Plan to articulate how nature and health work holistically as systems for mutual benefit and act as a vehicle for influence and discussion. We hope this Creative Fellowship can help us think differently about how to achieve this as an organisation and explore creative ways of working across teams and communities. 

Overview 

Natural England launched its new national strategy last year and one of four priorities is improving health and wellbeing.  

We are currently developing a Nature and Health Action Plan to look at delivery at an individual, community/place and ecosystem level – delivery of resilient urban environments and green and blue infrastructure is central to this.  

The plan aims to both outline our role in articulating how nature and health must come together holistically as systems for mutual benefit and act as a vehicle for influence and discussion with partners, positioning Natural England as a continued leader in the health and nature field.  

We hope a collaborative partnership with a Creative Fellow could: 

• Inspire new thinking and explore creative ways of working between Natural England researchers, officers and creative practitioners
• Facilitate and promote knowledge exchange between creative practitioners and Natural England staff working in both operations and/or strategic policy influencing positions
• Suggest ways Natural England could further communicate and engage with people around nature and health

We hope this Fellowship will provide insight into being more creative in translating evidence into policy and practice, and the important role of nature in benefiting individual health while also delivering healthy ecosystems that can protect against some of the consequences of climate on health such as flooding, heat and air quality. 

The Nature and Health Action Plan which is being developed is about using evidence, experience and insight to deliver an ambition that “by connecting communities with nature, improving access to nature and restoring ecosystems allows us to live happy, healthy lives”.   Some of the challenges include working in complex systems both internally and across the health system, and needing to embed more health outcomes in nature recovery approaches. We hope working with a Creative Fellow will bring a new lens to these challenges 

Natural England has also been developing an Arts Collaboration Network which, whilst not specifically health related, is exploring how arts and science can deliver for nature in terms of combining methods and disciplines and thinking differently about shared research questions. 

Location and Timings  

Natural England have offices across the country but staff also work remotely. Therefore, the Fellow can work both online and in person. We’d be keen for a number of face to face meetings and opportunities to attend site-specific places to gain insight into our health and nature work on the ground. 

The timescales for the Fellowship can be jointly agreed. However, it would be valuable for the 5 weeks to be spread over 3-4 months rather than delivered as a 5 week block. Across March to June would give flexibility but also ensure the project could be completed prior to the summer.  

Why do I want to work with a Creative Practitioner? 

At an organisation level Natural England is increasingly exploring how an arts-based approach can add to a science and evidence driven organisation. Learning from a Creative Fellowship would be relevant to other similar organisations including cross government arm’s length bodies who we collaborate closely with.  

As a health specialist based in our social science team but reaching into strategy and operations, interdisciplinary working is key to how I deliver my work. My background includes many years as a public health leader where the creative arts informed work across dementia and frailty but also highlighted how organisational change can often benefit from different perspectives and challenge thinking to communicate a new approach.  

We aim to offer the Creative Fellow an opportunity to immerse themselves in how a cross-disciplinary team is trying to shift organisational thinking on delivery of nature and health including its role in nature recovery programmes and how the interplay between what nature can do for health and what healthy people can do to protect nature.  

Thinking of creative ways to turn research into delivery and communicate learning to people in operational and policy roles who are sometimes overwhelmed by evidence and information could be hugely beneficial 

Building Shared Value  

Ideally we will spend time face to face to build rapport, understanding what ways of working may work best, and discuss approaches to reflection etc. I would be keen to ensure reflection is central to the experience.