The initiative is opening up the cultural resources of the 13 campuses to young people and new audiences through programmes of new arts and cultural events in response to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In support of the Cultural Olympiad, the CCI is essentially about exploration, research, learning and progression. By exploring and engaging sports and related social issues, the programmes offer young people, disabled and deaf artists, academics and practicing artists the chance to collaborate in leading, practice-based research in the arts.

The first phase will see more than 100 projects including commissions, exhibitions, performances, research and debate delivered this summer across the campuses.

Looking across the ‘emerging landscape’ of programmes, there are many inspirational projects in the pipeline connecting artists and athletes, the arts and sports in unexpected and intriguing ways.

Motus, for example, will bring sound and sport together to transform athletes into musical instruments; students and academics from Thames Valley University will present artworks inspired by the Olympics and Paralympics at the Kinetica Art Fair; Rush will be a new film looking at the movement of breath as it leaves the body during physical endurance; dressage horses will become spectators, responding to projected, close-up moving images of the horses bodies!

These and other projects will inform talks on issues which may range from the notion of ‘inner exercise’ in contemporary life; medals and hierarchies; competitive elites in society; physiological adaptation and hyper-mobility. The full list of projects will shortly be available on the CCI website.

The programmes are widening participation in the institutions through workshops and projects in partnership with local schools, colleges and communities. It is this aspect which seeks to stimulate progression routes for school children into further and higher arts education in the South East.

One project, for example, will work with local children exploring how scientists support Olympians; another involves older pupils learning the skills of film-making to produce documentaries on sports psychology and illegal doping; a secondary school will design and build artificial legs for future Paralympics competitors and another involves a national competition for designs for outdoor furniture in response to Olympics and Paralympic sports.

The longer term outcomes of all this activity will boost the creative potential of future artists and cultural entrepreneurs and help strengthen creative industries in the South East.

The 13 programmes will also be linked by regional, cross-campus activity. A series of creative debates informed by the programmes will culminate in a conference in June and vibrant learning material for teachers will be produced online and in booklet form, picking up on themes such as local Olympic history, the moving image and music.

In phase two, the CCI aims to link with universities in countries with Olympic histories as well as establish new partnerships with HE institutes in five other continents, reflecting the five Olympic rings.

All of this would not be possible without the dedication of a highly motivated team of six coordinators working with a steering group of academics and practicing artists.

Tim Eastop is the Director of Creative Campus Initiative.