Our Pillars |Our Approach | Our Founders | Our Vision
ABOUT BRIDGE
BRIDGE is the Black Studies Research, Impact, Diaspora and Global Education Centre a community-focused organisation founded by Professor Kehinde Andrews and Dr Dionne Taylor.
Our ambition is to strengthen the infrastructure for Black Studies within and beyond universities. This includes developing a Global Black Studies curriculum, supporting community-led research, creating educational programmes and building equitable international partnerships.
Producing rigorous, community-engaged and transformative Black Studies research that contributes to knowledge, policy and practice.
Developing accessible and innovative Black Studies education that connects scholarship, critical learning and real-world application..
Building reciprocal relationships that recognise Black communities as knowledge producers, partners and agents of change.
Building relationships across Britain, Africa, the Caribbean, the United States and the wider Black diaspora.
Professor Kehinde Andrews is a leading scholar of Black Studies, race and racism. He was the founding professor of Black Studies in the UK and has played a central role in establishing the field within British higher education.
His work examines Black radical politics, institutional racism, colonialism and the global structures that reproduce racial inequality. He is an experienced educator, author, researcher and public commentator who has brought Black Studies to audiences within universities, schools, prisons, community organisations and the wider public.
At BRIDGE, Kehinde leads on strategic development, Black Studies education, public engagement and the organisation’s financial and operational sustainability.
Dr Dionne Taylor is a Black Studies scholar, researcher and educator specialising in intersectionality, Black British women’s experiences, mental and sexual health, racialised trauma, student wellbeing and community-engaged research.
She is the creator of ICEPAR, an intersectional and participatory framework that brings together community engagement, accountability, reflexivity and an ethics of care. Her work connects research with lived experience to develop culturally meaningful approaches to education, wellbeing and social change.
Dionne is a former Associate Professor of Sociology and Black Studies and previously led the MA Black Studies and Global Justice. She was also a Fulbright Global Challenges Teaching Award scholar in Racial Justice.
At BRIDGE, Dionne leads on research, curriculum development, community engagement, evaluation and international partnerships
BRIDGE is guided by the principles of Liberation Engagement and the ICEPAR framework: Intersectionality, Community Engagement, Participatory Action, Accountability, Reflexivity and an Ethics of Care.
This means that the people and communities affected by our work are not treated simply as participants or beneficiaries. They are valued as partners, knowledge-holders and co-creators.
We believe Black Studies should do more than describe inequality. It should provide the knowledge, relationships and practical tools needed to transform it.
Our vision is a world in which Black knowledge, histories and lived experiences are recognised as essential to education, policy and social transformation.
Through research, education, community partnership and global collaboration, BRIDGE is building sustainable pathways for Black Studies to make a lasting difference across generations.
BRIDGE Mission
Our mission is to bring together Black scholarship, community knowledge and lived experience to challenge structural inequalities, strengthen communities and create meaningful social, institutional and policy change.
Grounded in Liberation Engagement and operationalised through ICEPAR, we work through equitable partnerships, co-creation, critical enquiry and an ethics of care to connect knowledge with action