ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on building relationships and creating safe spaces for critique and the incubation of new ideas. O'Dwyer and Sanderson took their impetus from the importance of individual connections and the need, in the face of dwindling central resources, to encourage a self-supporting model to be developed. They call the collaborative, flexible space for discussion and relationship-building a ‘forum’, which is designed to mitigate against individual isolation, to cut across disciplinary silos and to develop programme leader (PL) agency and understanding. Within the chapter, we see how individual PLs can share knowledge, how everyone can achieve better appreciation of the institutional context within which they work, how online tools could be used to increase engagement and identify areas for further development.
