Talk: Liz Moran former Chief Executive Gulbenkian, w.partners

Liz Moran is Director of Arts and Culture at the Canterbury University and former Chief Executive of the Gulbenkian.

Liz started as Director at Gulbenkian in November 2011 after 18 years as Artistic Director at the MacRobert Arts Centre in Stirling. During this time Liz established the MacRobert young consultancy scheme, for which the Centre received an Article 31 award, empowering young people to make decisions within the organisation including a major redesign of the venue. She secured the highest award from the Scottish Arts Council’s INSPIRE fund (£950,000) for MPOWER, a project enabling young people aged 12-17 years, to realise their creative potential through a mentoring and arts apprenticeship scheme, culminating in the national festival 'MFEST".  MacRobert developed a reputation for innovative work with children and young people to such an extent Liz was asked to write part of the then First Minister Jack McConnell’s  St. Andrews Day speech emphasising that children should NOT  be regarded as  audiences of the future but rather audiences NOW in their own right. Liz remains passionate about this work as she develops creative activity at Gulbenkian including ART31 a cultural leadership programme for 13-25 year olds in partnership with Kent County Council (funded by KCC and Arts Council England).She chairs the Kent Youth Arts Network bringing together 26 Cultural Organisations across Kent to work in partnership to ensure all children and young people in Kent have access to the highest quality of arts experience and opportunity. She is working to reposition Gulbenkian as a national leader in the field of work with, for and by children and young people. This includes the development of bOing! an international festival for families. bOIng! attracted 11,000 people onto the campus in 2017.

Gulbenkian became a National Portfolio Organisation with Arts Council England in 2014 and was successful in securing a further four years of funding 2018-22 and was one of only 8% Arts Organisations nationally to receive an increase in recognition of its ground breaking work with for and by children and young people.

In July 2017 Liz became Director of Arts and Culture for the University.