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Damian Hebron
Community, culture and engagement specialist
Damian has a background in campaigning for the ways in which creativity can support health and wellbeing. For 10 years he was Head of Arts at Cambridge University Hospitals, where he established the country’s first dance programme on hospital wards and supported patients in taking creative approaches to transform the hospital environment and services. He ran the charity London Arts and Health for 15 years, setting up the annual festival Creativity and Wellbeing and bringing together organisations around the country to set up the national campaigning group the Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance.
More recently he has explored the role that creativity plays in changing relationships between communities and research, with roles at Wellcome Connecting Science and Nesta. He joined The Young Foundation in 2024 where he works as a Senior Innovation Practitioner supporting citizen involvement in decision-making and leading the Community Research Networks programme. Damian is a Trustee of the Public Interest Research Centre, which supports movements for social, economic and climate justice to build compelling narratives that transform culture and policy, and of Suffolk Artlink a participatory arts charity that brings creativity into the heart of communities in Suffolk.
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