Naseem Khan

Naseem Khan has an MA from Oxford University in English Literature.  She has been at the forefront of Britain's cultural change as commentator, policy developer and initiator for over thirty years. The daughter of Indian and German immigrants, she has focused on the themes of diversity, innovation and social change nationally and internationally. She has worked on feasibility and research projects, formulated policy, run training sessions and contributed to conferences. Her ground-breaking report, ‘The Arts Britain Ignores' (1972) was the first to highlight the cultural work in ethnic minorities communities. She followed it up with a substantial body of work in diversity policy for organisations that include the Council of Europe, UNESCO, Museums and Galleries Commission, Gulbenkian Foundation, Asia-Europe Foundation and Arts Councils of England, Scotland and Wales.

As both an independent and staff journalist she has written regularly for the Guardian, Independent and New Statesman and others. After seven years as Head of Diversity for Arts Council England, she returned to freelance life in 2003 to run her own consultancy, KC. It focuses on research, training, evaluation and policy advice in the fields of cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue. She was one of five Women of the Decade in the Arts in 1993 and was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her work on cultural diversity in 1999.

More recently, Naseem Kahn has published several articles on her concept of interculturalism: "The Shared Space: The Challenges of Cultural Diversity", in: Bodo, S.(ed): Culture in Movimento. Strumenti e Risorse per una Città Interculturale. Milano: M&B Publishing, 2005.

She is the scientific advisor to the conference "Islands and Bridges" (October 2006, Helsinki) which seek to investigate and understand the value and importance of intercultural dialogue in the European context and will address issues of social cohesion; national identity; racial discrimination and the sense of the individual.