Introducing Paul Hine: embedding creative practice in our Health and Climate Narratives Taskforce 

The Centre for Net Positive Health and Climate Solutions is delighted to welcome Paul Hine as a Creative Fellow, working alongside our Health and Climate Narratives Taskforce. 

For the Centre this is about more than inviting an artist to respond to research once it is complete. It is an opportunity to explore what happens when creative practice becomes part of the process itself: shaping conversations, opening up different perspectives and helping people from different disciplines, sectors and lived experiences think together in new ways. 

The Health and Climate Narratives Taskforce is exploring how health-focused framings of climate change adaptation and mitigation can help generate better outcomes for people, the environment and society. 

At the heart of its work are four interconnected themes — responsibility, time, evidence and storytelling — and questions about how climate-related health risks are defined, who is expected to act, and what kinds of futures are seen as possible. Storytelling, arts and creative practice will be an important part of exploring those questions. 

Creativity as part of the process 

Paul will work closely with the Taskforce throughout its development, using creative methods to support its sessions, helping make complex research accessible, capturing the process in different ways and ultimately developing a creative work alongside the Taskforce’s final recommendations. 

His work will help us experiment with how creative facilitation, storytelling and narrative practice can support cross-sector collaboration and deepen the conversations that turn research into meaningful action. One of the major benefits of Paul’s practice is his lengthy experience of bringing lived experience to life.

Creative practice can make space for different forms of knowledge and experience, encourage people to approach familiar problems differently and support more emotional and empathetic forms of understanding. Paul’s role will be deliberately broad — as convenor, collaborator, listener, storyteller and analyser — while providing a kind of creative mirror to the Taskforce, reflecting back the ideas, tensions and new knowledge that emerge. 

About Paul 

Paul is a creative practitioner and CEO and co-founder of Made By Mortals, an award-winning arts organisation using creativity and lived experience to shape health, care and social change. 

His practice spans storytelling, participatory arts, immersive audio, film, music and character-based work. He specialises in co-creating fictional characters rooted in lived experience, helping communities, researchers and policymakers explore complex issues in ways that can generate new insights and practical ideas for change. His projects have involved universities, NHS organisations, local authorities and community groups across the UK. 

Paul said: 

“What excites me most about this residency is the opportunity to work alongside researchers, practitioners and people with lived experience to reshape how we talk about climate and health. I’m looking forward to using creative practice to help uncover new perspectives, build shared understanding across different forms of expertise, and transform complex evidence into stories that resonate emotionally as well as intellectually. If we can help people see climate-related health inequalities through a more human lens, we have a real opportunity to influence policy, practice and public understanding.” 

A different way of working 

Annie Sheen, Cultural Producer for the Net Positive Centre said: 

“With more than 20 years’ experience as an award-winning creative practitioner, Paul will bring a wealth of expertise, insight and imagination to this Taskforce process. At the Net+ Centre, we believe creativity is fundamental to systems change, and embedding creative practitioners within our programmes is central to our values. This residency is also a great opportunity to invest in creative practice itself, and we look forward to supporting Paul’s own artistic development throughout the project.” 

This is the first time a creative practitioner has been embedded within a research taskforce in this way 

Ultimately, we want to understand what becomes possible when a creative practitioner is not brought in at the margins of a research programme, but becomes part of the team asking the questions — and what that might teach us about new ways of working on the complex challenges connecting climate and health.