Rowan is the Director of Research and Innovation at the RSA. She leads the Action and Research Centre (ARC) and aims to ensure that the RSA is undertaking rigorous, profile raising and influential research and innovation projects. With the intention of focusing the RSA’s research on real world impact, she is driving the focus of ARC’s work on the RSA’s emerging world view of the “Power to Create”. This explores how the creative life, too often confined to an elite or a sector, could be fostered throughout the economy and society. The rationale behind this world view is that the 21st century is presenting us with challenges of increasing scale and complexity yet, just as creativity is in ever greater demand, a vast resource of creative potential is going untapped. She has over 15 years’ experience in research and engagement with communities, businesses and government bodies and has led a wide range of research and engagement programmes that include: enquiry by design processes for urban place-making, asset based community development, social enterprise development and impact planning, cross sector partnership working, mental health service design, and environmental sustainability research. 

• Read Rowan's Blog
• Watch Rowan in RSA Replay: The Future of Capitalism. 
• Watch Rowan in RSA Replay: Communities Creating Health and Wellbeing 
• Watch Rowan in RSA Replay: The Silo Effect