Caroline Ward

As Manager, in the Cultural and Community Engagement team, as part of the Office of the Vice-Provost (Strategy), I co-develop and deliver the Community Engagement Strategy for UCL East, shaping how the university collaborates with communities across east London. I build strategic partnerships with researchers, community organisations, and cultural stakeholders across the boroughs and East Bank, working with researchers on climate and health engagement, public programming, exhibitions and engagement methodologies. I lead training, programmes, and internal networks that strengthen community‑engaged practice and Research Culture at UCL, supporting research excellence through inclusive, co-produced approaches. I manage UCL East's Seed and Development funds for community engagement, oversee budgets, and I am developing the East Engagement Awards to celebrate excellence in research engagement, while representing UCL’s engagement work in senior forums.

As Senior Manager at Wellcome, I lead the development and delivery of innovative programmes that are integral to achieving our Climate & Health strategic programme. My focus is on embedding and championing meaningful involvement and participation —particularly from communities most affected by health challenges—into the core of our work, ensuring diverse voices inform our direction and outcomes. I oversaw the Community Engagement portfolio and team for Climate & Health. I collaborate closely with colleagues across Corporate Affairs, Strategy, Policy, Research and the Collection to design and manage research programmes that maximise impact through evidence-based approaches. I am dedicated to building partnerships with experts and communities, and to evolving our methods to ensure inclusivity, anti-racism, and anti-ableism are embedded throughout our practices. I have established internal cross-cutting working groups for transdisciplinary research and indigenous knowledge practices. With a strong background in research, design, participation, equity, and collaborative programme management, I excel in complex, dynamic environments. I am committed to setting strategy and innovating practices for equitable futures, fostering a diverse and inclusive culture at Wellcome, and building bridges across sectors and communities to deliver lasting impact.

Elected by staff to lead the Disability Staff Network and champion disability inclusion across the organisation. Facilitate inclusive co-design and participatory planning processes with disabled and neurodivergent staff in partnership with Wellcome’s Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) team, ensuring authentic representation in decision-making. Foster multi-stakeholder collaboration by organising expert-led talks, panels, and events to enhance knowledge sharing, support disabled and neurodiverse colleagues, and inspire confidence and ambition. Advocate quarterly to senior leadership—including the Executive Committee and Board of Governors—for systemic policy and practice changes that create a more inclusive workplace culture.

Co-founder of Squirrel Nation, a creative, not-for-profit, studio based in Manchester who make & curate films, exhibitions and events connecting design. art, science & the environment. We create memorable experiences & concepts that punctuate everyday life. Commissions include Nature's Switch (2015), FarmLab (2016), Purring Chamber (2017), Data Critter (2018), and Sheffield DocFest's Creative Exchange talk and film programme with the theme of Planetary Health.

Visiting fellowship with JUST AI, Funded by AHRC to contribute to locating and filling gaps in ethical thinking about data and AI with respect to racial justice. In connection with Ada Lovelace Institute.

Leading research that supports the Centre to develop research themes and advance knowledge across Age & Diversity, Healthcare and Social & Global tracks. As the Senior Researcher, I supervise design researchers across the three portfolios, this included ethnography and design research into anti-microbial resistance in primary and secondary care settings with UCL; virtual reality as a therapy for psychosis with Oxford University; and the development of inclusion principles for TfL. I identified and pursuing new research questions and themes, bid-writing and academic publication, advising on and overseeing inclusive design, ethnography, user research, developing collaborative research, facilitating design decisions and mentoring staff, knowledge exchange, liaising with cross-sector academics, industry and voluntary sector partners to grow networks around the programme.

Analysing and synthesising findings from an international, cross-disciplinary design study, Designing for Safety. The findings were presented to stakeholders in broadcast, space, engineering and medical technologies in order to exchange perspectives, identify cultural differences to inform and learn from safety policies across sectors.

Senior Digital Producer for a multinarrative interactive documentary. Working with commissioner and creatives (CYOD), to develop creative agency brief; scoped and commissioned digital agency, following pitches. Overseeing agency delivery across brand development, user research (choice analysis), experience lifecycle, production delivery, UI, UX, user testing and digital strategy, budget and schedule.

- User Research on future experiences with narratives for interactive TV and object based media for Horizon 2020 research programme, across BT, Donmar Warehouse and RSC to prototype the theatre experience in schools. - Speculative design of AI experiences with broadcast - Overseeing user and audience research, creative direction, qualitative interviewing, analysis, synthesis, ideation and prototyping.

Working in User Experience and Design on complex cross-disciplinary projects as a project lead. Using UX and creative methods for innovation, including design sprints and participatory methods. Interactive Radio - exploring the experience of radio visually and using captioning as a starting point for creativity rather than accessibility, by approaching diverse audiences as lead users. Gained sponsorship from design and editorial stakeholders, ran audience research, managing research agencies, design sprint, prototyping and user testing. Get Playing - a collaboration with BBC Music to create a virtual crowdsourced orchestra for BBC's Last Night of the Proms. overseeing the digital development of the campaign across all platforms. Line managing producers, and commissioning film and radio content across all platforms and services. Crimewatch - Ideation and design sprint around the digital offering of a flagship BBC brand. Overseeing design research with agencies and audiences. Edinburgh Festivals - Service Design approach to the BBC's presence at Edinburgh Festivals, following on from Pathways work. Oversaw digital and face-to-face ethnography with research agency and design agency, to create a digital platform, films and publication. Never Let Wonder Go To Waste - Writer and director for a short film exploring human centred design, for BBC GEL.

Developing online media experiences for the audience of today and cross-media experiences for the audiences of tomorrow. Pathways was a design and research portfolio to join up online editorial thinking, a prototyping method, a way to commission and foster 'One Service'. Taking a lifecycle and design approach to audience platforms and experiences. The aim was to create long audience journeys across platforms (TV, online, events) and products (Radio1, BBC Arts, iWonder, festivals and social media). Using a mix of design and broadcast techniques, including service design, brainstorming, storyboarding, ethnographic research,and prototyping. I fostered collaboration across departments to commission new experiences, specifically for 16-34 female audiences. Projects included: Love Festivals - a BBC one service approach to the range of festivals BBC covers each year, including Glastonbury and Edinburgh Festivals. Piloted on BBC Taster, working with broadcast, radio and online teams to create innovative content, including UGC content for T in the Park. Also worked with Service Design students at Hyper Island to explore the Edinburgh Festival experience. Crimewatch - exposing the interactive potential of a flagship BBC show. Running ideation sessions with users, staff and police and creating concepts around interactive storytelling and mapping. Used as part of the BBCs brief for D&AD 2015. BBC Sport - working with BBC Sport to increase referrals from Instagram to iPlayer. Interactive Radio - innovating the radio experience with extreme users. Bought together and collaborated with designers, writers and editorial across Radio 5live, R&D, iPlayer, BBC Taster and A/V Experiences.

Designing skills and training experiences for staff and audiences, run in partnership with national charities and organisations. Including Festival of Code, BAAF, Groundwork and Media Trust. Connecting staff to audiences. Oversaw the BBC North portfolio.

Filmed the BBC World Cup Day, contributors include BBC sports commentators, Guy Mowbray and Conor McNamara.

Worked on both the Sport Interactive Olympic and Paralympic websites, app and Red Button for coverage of live sport, help put together text, audio and video, photographic and interactive content, and help improve what BBC offer to audience on a daily basis. I was specifically responsible for the selection and live publishing of the picture gallery on BBC Sport. BBC Sport Interactive is the department responsible for the content and development of BBC Sport’s digital platforms. Working closely with Future Media, the department delivers a BBC Sport product for ‘four screens’: desktop, mobile, tablet and red button/connected TV.

Worked on BBC Two commission, 'Britain's First Photo Album' engaging the British public in learning about the work of photographer, Francis Frith. I produced a range of print and download resources, bbc.co.uk programme pages and Things To Do presence to support workshops hosted by museums and libraries around the UK. Recently worked on Bang Goes the Theory Live: The Science of Football in partnership with Manchester City Football club. Involved in producing a live show and interactive zone at MediaCity:UK attended by families and football fans. Previously worked on user-generated BBC Two commission, 'Britain in a Day'. The project is being produced in conjunction with Ridley Scott's production company, Scott Free London, which produced the user-generated feature film, 'Life in A Day'.

Archive researcher for the anniversary of BBC content from Manchester (Aunties Northern Soul), working with the Inside Out team.

Working across Technology Operations to develop and streamline the way BBC technical knowledge is managed, including piloting a senior management working group with The Core, I&A’s document management system. My consultant role oversaw the development and roll out of a single web-based knowledge management system to be used across the various support teams for technical and non-technical users as part of Project Next knowledge base. I provided relevant training and communication about knowledge management and media managing and co-ordinated its use and set the product direction across both audio and visual platforms in BBC Audio & Music.

Filmed and edited Nosheen Iqbal's case for Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland and why it should win this year's Man Booker prize. The shortlisted novel centres on two brothers from 1960s Calcutta whose futures remain linked even after their life choices sweep them to different continents and fates.

Directing, producing and editing content at high profile cultural events (music, arts, performance, festival). Specialised in providing short content for web, mobile phone and DVD. Commissions included British Film Institute, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, Liverpool Biennial, Sheffield DocFest and Tate Modern.

Selected to join the Cosmic Alternatives III Summer School by ISCI Berkeley and Serralves Foundation examines if there’s an outside to the modern, colonial world, exploring alternative cosmologies through anarchist politics, Black thought, decolonialism, and more. Led by interdisciplinary faculty, it offers an intense space to engage with climate, nonmodern cosmologies, and radical pluralism. Faculty included: Natalia Brizuela,Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Martin Savransky, Peter Skafish

With a focus on museum and gallery practice, in association with Van Abbemuseum, the Summer School on decoloniality challenges participants to move beyond Western academic norms by fostering a communal, pluriform approach centred on healing, gratitude, and self-reflection, encouraging individuals to confront their own entanglement with coloniality in everyday life. Through classes, discussions, and new frameworks, the experience highlighted both the discomfort and growth in breaking away from inherited Western perspectives, offering tools and community as support for continued decolonial learning and collaboration.

The 2020 Rosi Braidotti Summer School titled "Posthuman Convergences: Theories and Methodologies" explored the convergence of posthumanism and postanthropocentrism in shaping subjectivity, knowledge production, and academic humanities. It featured interdisciplinary lectures and seminars addressing environmental, digital, and medical humanities. Emphasis was placed on moving beyond anthropocentrism and addressing the exclusion of marginalised groups. The program combined theory with practical applications across multiple fields, emphasising the role of arts and humanities in reimagining social imaginaries and overcoming "theory fatigue."

The 2019 Summer School “Posthuman Knowledge(s)” offered an interdisciplinary overview of posthumanism and postanthropocentrism, exploring their impact on subjectivity, knowledge production, and academia. It emphasised embodied subjectivity, inclusion, affirmative ethics, and the arts’ role in critical humanities.

After the Creative City was a collaborative research studio on cultural infrastructure that used a mix of archival research (Barbican, City of London, Metropolitan Archives), fieldwork, public talks, and an exhibition to examine art and culture's role in urban development by exploring the material, ecological, and social conditions shaping creative spaces and informing cultural policy.