Introduction

This special issue of Cultural Science Journal brings together a range of material that was presented at the Creative Citizens conference1 at the Royal College of Art in London on September 17th and 18th 2014. The event marked the culmination of the 30-month UK Research Council funded investigation into the nature of creative citizenship during which researchers from six UK universities and a range of community and policy partners undertook original empirical research and produced co-created creative media products. The conference was more than the usual run through of academic papers and instead had lively workshops, an exhibition, policy and theoretical debates and much more. This special issue therefore tries to capture a little of that wider experience in its choice of contents and, like the conference itself, offers up critical examples of creative citizenship in action and also some reflection and problematising of the concept itself