Home of cultural innovators
Somerset House is a place where creativity meets purpose, and where ideas are born to challenge, inspire, and transform. We’re a large creative ecosystem that works globally at the intersection of artistic and social innovation across the creative industry, art, business, and non-profit, nurturing new talent, methods, and technologies. Our mission is to support creativity in all its forms and we do this by:
- Being a unique workspace for innovators working in the arts, culture, and the creative industry — a place where cultural innovation is not only celebrated but enabled through community, collaboration, talent development, and opportunity
- Acting as a career launchpad and a creative business incubator through our distinct career interventions programmes for young people, artists, makers, creative enterprises and entrepreneurs to develop their skills, practice, and networks
- Curating, commissioning, and presenting a cutting edge year round public art programme
Ecosystem Verticals
creative industry
Social impact
international mobility
Cultural innovation
Ecosystem Overview
Offering Services
FLEXIBLE WORKSPACE – FROM COWORKING TO DESIGNATED OFFICES
Somerset House Exchange
Somerset House Exchange is our dedicated coworking and incubator space for early-stage creative businesses, freelancers, and cultural entrepreneurs nestled within a reimagined heritage space, offering an affordable, collaborative environment for those shaping the future of the creative industries. More than just a desk, Exchange is a launchpad — a place where ideas, disciplines, and people come together. It’s home to a vibrant community of over 700 members working globally across animation, gaming, fashion, film, music, design, tech, and more.
BUSINESS SUPPORT & CAREER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
Businesses, freelancers, and art practitioners joining us means become part of a vibrant, collaborative community benefiting from a rich calendar of public events, opportunities to contribute to our cultural programme, tailored professional development, peer-to-peer learning, mentoring, coaching, curated events to support professional development, and social sessions designed to foster meaningful connections.
BUSINESS RESIDENCIES
Exchange Bursaries
A flagship initiative designed to make our creative workspace accessible to entrepreneurs who have historically faced barriers to participation in the creative industry providing exposure to opportunities and meaningful connections. It offers subsidised memberships of up to 75% off for a three-year period, enabling recipients to join a thriving creative community and tailored programme of business support events and peer networks.
Black Business Residency
A 12-month programme supporting early-stage Black creative entrepreneurs. It provides free access to Somerset House Exchange, mentorship, and masterclasses.
GLOBAL CONNECTION
Our Digital Membership is designed for creative entrepreneurs, freelancers, and cultural innovators who want to stay connected, inspired, and supported — no matter where they are in the world. It provides seamless access to a vibrant global network of creatives, along with tools and resources to help members grow their practice, collaborate, and thrive:
- Access to our global creative community – thousand of members across disciplines via a searchable members directory, filtered by skills, interests, and location
- Collaboration & networking tools – discussion boards, opportunities, themed groups helping creatives find collaborators, share ideas, and build partnerships
- Curated resources – designed to help creatives stay inspired with access to thought leadership, toolkits, and behind-the-scenes content.
- Perks & discounts – a variety of discounts to services, events, products, and digital tools on offer from our creative community and our wider industry partners
Whether it’s a founder in Florianópolis, a designer in Cape Town, or a curator in Cologne, our digital membership brings the Somerset House spirit to their fingertips helping members stay connected to opportunity, creativity, and community.
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
Somerset House Studios is a space for experimentation connecting artists, makers and thinkers with audiences. The Studios supports artists across disciplines to push bold ideas, engage with urgent issues and experiment with new technologies, develops ambitious cross disciplinary projects and creative collaborations on a range of scales, and powers Channel, Somerset House’s online space for art, ideas and the artistic process. 70+ artists are resident at any one time for a period of between one and seven years. A number of shorter term national and international residency programmes are running alongside every year.
MAKERVERSITY
Makerversity provides affordable workspace for making, design, digital, manufacturing and materials innovation businesses. Since 2014 Makerversity has been supporting businesses with workshops and work space, enabling them to experiment and prototype using specialist machinery and tools for a whole range of creative practices.
In addition, Makerversity offers two free residencies, enabling those at the beginning of their journey, or without the means to participate, to access opportunity.
- Makers with a Mission – supports 20 designers each year who have a world changing design, prototype or businesses with 6 months free membership for an individual or a team of up to 3.
- Under 30s – free membership for 3 months
INCLUSIVE TALENT PATHWAYS
Leveraging our resident creative community and our cultural programme, we create space for young people aged 16–30 to explore a creative career, test ideas, learn, and grow with confidence. A range of entry routes into the arts and creative industries are on offer through events, monthly meet-ups, masterclasses, and digital learning tools, and through our Upgrade Yourself Programme and Creative Industry Placements
Success Stories
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