Professor Rhiannon Jones, Chair of the UK Learning Cities Network and Head of Civic and Communities at the University of Derby, outlines how learning cities should be understood as civic ecosystems where learning happens everywhere – in culture, communities and everyday civic life – enabling more inclusive and meaningful lifelong learning beyond formal education.

© Designing Dialogue CIC, 2019

Across the UK and internationally, interest in learning cities continues to grow. Yet discussions about lifelong learning often remain tethered to formal education systems, institutions, qualifications, pathways and participation rates. While these matter, they only tell part of the story. Insights from a recent UK Learning Cities Network webinar on Civic, Culture and Lifelong Learning point to a broader understanding: learning cities as civic ecosystems, where learning is embedded in culture, community life and democratic participation rather than confined to classrooms.

For many people, learning does not begin or end in school. It unfolds through everyday participation in neighbourhoods, cultural spaces, community organizations and civic processes. These forms of learning build confidence, capability, voice and belonging, often creating the conditions for people to reconnect with learning on their own terms.

When learning cities are viewed as ecosystems, learning is recognized as something that can happen everywhere. It occurs in libraries, theatres, museums and cultural venues; through volunteering, mutual aid and grassroots organizing; and within civic practices such as citizens’ assemblies, festivals, participatory budgeting and public consultation. These forms of learning are often overlooked because they rarely lead to formal qualifications. Yet they are essential in helping people develop skills, relationships and civic agency grounded in lived experience.

Culture and civic practice are not add-ons to lifelong learning; they are foundational. This perspective is especially important for adults and communities least well served by traditional education systems. Cultural activity provides accessible, participatory routes into learning, while civic engagement offers real-world contexts where learning is applied and owned. In Belfast, a UNESCO Learning City, initiatives such as the Bank of Ideas illustrate this approach. By inviting residents to contribute ideas for the city’s future, the process becomes a learning experience, developing skills in dialogue, collaboration, imagination and democratic participation.

Similarly, Derby’s UNESCO Learning City agenda includes the Derby Promise and Dream Fest, demonstrating how cultural activity can be embedded in civic learning infrastructures. These initiatives bring creative opportunities to children and young people, including performances and exposure to careers in the arts. Learning emerges through experience, storytelling and participation rather than instruction alone.

Across these examples, creativity plays a distinctive role, not simply as an outcome of learning, but as a method. When embedded intentionally, creativity enables experimentation, supports collaboration across sectors and builds shared ownership among civic, cultural and educational partners. Designing Dialogue CIC, through the Social Higher Education Depot (S.H.E.D.), co-designs place-based projects using arts-based methods to connect communities and civic partners, fostering agency and creativity. Likewise, the University of Derby’s CivicLAB and the Civic Hub create environments for collaborative thinking about place and change, shaping strategy and public engagement through active learning approaches.

The Centre for Cultural Ecologies in Art, Design and Architecture (CEADA) at the University of Huddersfield further exemplifies this ecosystem approach. Focusing on Kirklees, a UNESCO Learning City in West Yorkshire, CEADA explores how cultural ecologies shape place through community engagement, public pedagogy and creative methods. Its work emphasizes that culture and lifelong learning function as infrastructure rather than optional extras: they shape how people live, connect and learn.

Learning cities can challenge hierarchical ideas of expertise by valuing lived experience, emotion and imagination alongside formal knowledge. Learning flourishes where civic and cultural infrastructures are recognized as essential assets, where partnerships span sectors, and where creativity sits at the heart of inclusive systems.

These insights align with UNESCO’s learning cities framework. Rather than prescribing models, UK Learning Cities offer transferable lessons. Cities globally are encouraged to broaden their understanding of where learning happens, to value civic and cultural practice as vital infrastructures, and to support lifelong learning as something people live, not simply access.

The opportunity now is to reimagine learning as a shared civic practice, one that recognizes, resources and champions the spaces where people learn every day.