About Us
ACE – ASSOCIATION FOR CREATIVE EUROPE - or Ace In Europe as we like to call it, combines expertise and passion to developing a better future from three sectors and three corners of Europe. Together, we can provide proven and high-standard output for project development and management, visual design and technical needs.
ACE is a dynamic and innovative organisation with a passion for effective and careful project management. Based in Lisbon Portugal, we are a group of partners who have successfully worked together for over 12 years.
We carefully curate the projects we want to be involved in; those that improve the world and people's lives on a regional, European, and global level and to work with partners that share our values. We love what we do and we bring with us a strong network of partners and specialists who share our vision.
Our experience is mainly with Erasmus+ KA2 and Small-Scale Partnerships, and we welcome invitations to cooperate. As a very experienced ‘Newcomer’ of course, we add strength to applications.
We are also open to exploring other funds and opportunities either in Europe or beyond.
Here's our core:
Diana Hudson
Diana is Director of Ace In Europe. Her background is in the creative industries and has run several businesses. Her great love is building partnerships sometimes with the most unlikely combinations. She has an eclectic network which spans many sectors.
Diana has been coordinator or partner in projects across the EU for the last 10 years, mainly for the Erasmus+ Programme. Principally focused on education and the creative and cultural industries, she has most recently been engaged with projects which specifically use creativity to highlight issues of the environment and the circular economy.
During the last 15 year she has been closely involved in conservation projects and has led volunteer groups to Asia and Europe and managed EU funded projects in sustainable tourism.
For the past 30 years she has lived part time in Portugal.
Paul Chapman
Paul has over 25 years’ experience of working for local and regional government in the UK. He has managed a variety of European projects (Interreg, LIFE, Erasmus) for the past 20 years, overseeing the process from finding suitable partners to writing the application, managing the project and coordinating the partnership; reporting, monitoring and evaluating the results. He is an Expert for the EU’s URBACT Programme and for the Council of Europe’s Intercultural Cities network.
He has extensive experience of working with city partners on topics ranging from youth democracy to urban river restoration; from tackling gender violence to the development of coworking spaces for micro-business.
He has specific interest and experience in utilising the intercultural potential of public open space, with particular focus on improving the natural environment in urban settings. He loves making connections between people and ideas and encouraging stronger outcomes through cross cultural interactions.
Karina Lynch Charles
Karina Lynch Charles has worked in media, arts administration and film for over 15 years. She began as a broadcast journalist on radio and progressed to a career in television as Producer/Presenter on Sky TV. She began working through the medium of film in 2013 and recently produced an award feature film Redemption of a Rogue that had its cinematic release in 2021 and has been available to watch on Netflix since January 2022. Karina has just written her first screenplay and is currently working towards developing this feature.
Leigh Sear
Leigh is currently Chief Executive of the Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative (SFEDI), part of the SFEDI Group, which is the Sector Skills Body for Business and Enterprise and Business Support in the UK. Having previously worked at Durham Business School and Wood Holmes Group, Leigh has over 20 years experience of understanding and supporting enterprise learning and skills development at a national and international level.
Leigh has extensive experience in designing and delivering programmes of enterprise learning and skills development for government departments and agencies, large corporates, regional and local development agencies, community and voluntary organisations and small businesses. For example, over the last five years, Leigh has led a number of Erasmus Plus projects focused on different aspects of understanding and supporting entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, social innovation and sustainability.
In addition, Leigh has extensive experience of working in, and for higher education institutions supporting the development, delivery and evaluation of enterprise and entrepreneurship education in the UK and internationally. For example, Leigh is currently working in Azerbaijan, with Newcastle University Business School, to support the embedding of enterprise and entrepreneurship education in creative subject areas in higher education. Leigh has recently completed a project with Advance HE in the UK which involved working with over 30 higher education institutions to support the development of a range of projects focused on adding value through enterprise and entrepreneurship education. Leigh has experience of developing innovative undergraduate and postgraduate enterprise and entrepreneurship programmes and he was part of the QAA working group that developed the benchmark statements for enterprise and entrepreneurship education in the UK.
Until 2021, Leigh was Vice-President for Policy and Practice with the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (a UK small business research body). He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs, an Associate of the Centre for Knowledge Innovation, Technology and Enterprise (KITE) within the University of Newcastle and an Honorary Entrepreneurial Fellow at Durham University Business School.
Jon Brewer
Jon is a strategist and connector, having worked across the UK public sector, NGOs, social enterprises and B2B tech start-ups and larger scale commercial enterprises. He is passionate about unlocking collaboration, where joining people up and cooperative effort is essential to achieving important, shared goals. Jon has led sales, marketing, partnership, channel and fundraising teams, as well as projects to improve corporate systems and processes. He has co-founded charities, including one in the area of ‘tech for good’, helping nonprofits improve their effectiveness through technology, as well as creating technology for a social purpose. Jon’s dissertation for his Masters Degree in Marketing centered on ‘Public Purpose Marketing’ and cross-sector collaboration, and he has extended this theme throughout his working life – including previously as Development Director at the Global Cyber Alliance, and now with the DISARM Foundation, helping address the existential problem of disinformation.