2025 - A challenging context but also a year of clarity
Reflections on the challenges and opportunities 2025 brought to CAO
Lucy Shaw , CAO’s Director and Founder
2025 was a year that saw CAO work across the UK and internationally, and across policy, practice, research, leadership and organisational change.
As always, our work has been rooted in a shared commitment: helping cultural, heritage and creative organisations navigate complexity, build resilience, and deliver meaningful impact for communities, audiences and economies.
But this has taken place against an exceptionally difficult global backdrop for arts, culture and heritage. Across the UK and internationally, 2025 has been marked by sustained public funding pressures, rising operating costs, geopolitical instability, conflict, post-pandemic aftershocks, and growing expectations on cultural organisations to demonstrate impact, relevance and financial resilience with fewer resources. Many of the organisations and sectors we work with are navigating structural change, workforce fatigue and heightened scrutiny at a time when the social value of culture has never been more needed.
Writing openly and candidly, it has also been a challenging year for CAO. While we have delivered a wide range of projects, securing commissions has required more focus, persistence and adaptability than ever before in an increasingly competitive and uncertain market. That reality has not been easy, but it certainly has been galvanising. It made us think really carefully about what we do, who we do it for and why we do it. And this has strengthened us as a team. Working in this context has sharpened our purpose, strengthened our partnerships and forced real clarity about where we add the greatest value.
Reflecting back, we have stretched ourselves, tried new ways of working and have ended the year on a positive note. We have continued great partnerships and made some exciting news ones. Thank you to all our clients, partners and friends for navigating 2025 with us.
Strengthening local cultural ecosystems
One of the most significant pieces of place-based work this year was Re:Frame – A Visual Arts Analysis and Opportunities Report for Brighton & Hove, commissioned by Brighton & Hove City Council with support from Arts Council England. Developed through extensive research and consultation with artists, organisations and stakeholders, the report provides a robust evidence base and a clear, ambitious framework for the future of visual arts in the city.
Alongside this, we supported the Foundation for Jewish Heritage in developing its plans for the Welsh Jewish Heritage Centre in Merthyr Tydfil, and began new partnerships with Poole Museum and London Libraries, supporting both organisations to reframe their long-term purpose and strategic direction.
Research shaping national and sector-wide practice
We delivered a major research report Temporary and Touring Exhibitions Practice: Economic, Production and Partnership Models for The Exhibitions Group, supported by Arts Council England which will be published in the next few months. We also supported the Churches Conservation Trust in reviewing its Community Initiative Projects, which we look forward to helping to reshape this year, and have started evaluating one of the Art Fund’s major strands of funding that makes a huge difference to the UK’s museums and galleries.
Leadership, learning and capacity building
Leadership development remained a central strand of CAO’s work in 2025, including INTO Heritage Leaders for the International National Trusts Organisation supporting heritage leaders across the world, working with Saïd Business School on its flagship Oxford Strategic Leadership programme and its custom programme for the Royal Ballet and Opera, and working with Sheffield Culture in designing and delivering its brilliant new Creative Futures programme.
Culture, policy and the global creative economy
Internationally, 2025 marked a milestone year for CAO’s work with the British Council, which is now a five year partnership, including delivery of Supporting the Creative Economy programmes across Egypt, Tunisia, India and ASEAN, which has now been accessed by over 3,500 people, and the authoring and editing the ASEAN Creative Economy Sustainability Framework ratified at’s its meeting in Kuala Lumpur in May 2025.
Audiences, democracy and civic heritage
We also continued our work with UK Parliament’s Heritage Collections and Royal Museums Greenwich, supporting audience development strategies and plans that strengthen relevance, access and impact.
The year ahead
As we look towards the year ahead, 2025 has reinforced what matters most to CAO: working in close partnership, bringing clarity to complexity, and combining strategic insight with practical action. Our priority is to continue focusing our energy on work that is deeply aligned with our purpose, where rigorous thinking, trusted relationships and long-term impact matter most. And that fills me with pride and happiness.