Driving balance for a better world
Inspired by the principles championed by His Majesty King Charles III, the BU Harmony Centre exits with an ethos that balance, respect, and connection are the keys to positive change. The Centre puts Harmony at the heart of everything it does, asking: How can we live in better balance with each other and the natural world?
This is a Centre for collaboration, innovation, and learning; bringing together people, partners, organisations, and real-world environments as living labs to develop powerful, practical solutions.
Areas of focus
Harmony Centre partners at the first meetingBournemouth University will act as a leading partner in the initiative. With a passion for the areas in which the university operates, the Centre aims to pilot activities within the region, while looking to work with partners and trusted organisations around the world.
In collaboration with The King’s Foundation, the Centre advances research and practice across four key areas to foster wellbeing, reduce conflict, and strengthen communities:
- Building Sustainable Communities & Transforming Lives: Creating place-based projects that regenerate communities while embedding education that genuinely changes lives
- Built Environment: Advancing a sense of place and long-term stewardship projects that successfully combine sustainability, heritage, and civic wellbeing
- Natural Environment: Applying harmony principles to farming, food, and human wellbeing, while equipping the next generation to live in balance with the planet
- Heritage and Tradition: A focus on preserving and revitalising traditional skills, knowledge, and cultural practices essential to sustainable living.
The golden thread
Running through all these themes is a golden thread of health and wellbeing to ensure every project enhances not just places and environments, but also the quality of life, resilience, and flourishing of individuals and communities, locally, nationally, and globally.
Our role and how you can play a part
The Centre supports the university’s BU2035 strategy, which is built on a pillar of place and partnership. The university takes its civic responsibility seriously as an anchor institution in the region, and the concept of harmony will be the heartbeat of community activities to enrich lives and locations, utilising the best of the university’s research and knowledge capacity, alongside established partnerships.
Professor Alison Honour, Vice-Chancellor of Bournemouth University, said, “At Bournemouth University, we want to put our knowledge and capacity towards creating harmony for the people and the world around us, that’s what this Centre exists for, to deliver projects and harmony initiatives that help make people’s lives better, to protect our heritage and environment, and to maximise the harmony between our work and our location in all we do”.
Championed by Professor Michael Dooley, Visiting Professor and Pro Chancellor of Bournemouth University and Lord-Lieutenant of Dorset, with project oversight by Layne Hamerston, Civic and Community Partnership Manager at Bournemouth University, the BU Harmony Centre is committed to building a more harmonious and sustainable future.
Professor Michael Dooley said, “For me, harmony is not a distant ideal but a living experience — found in the balance between people, place, and planet. It reminds us that we are part of the natural world, not different from it; its beauty and rhythm have the power to calm, to teach, and to heal. When we live in tune with nature, we rediscover our own sense of wellbeing, purpose, and connection.”
“Here in Dorset, harmony surrounds us — in the meeting of sea and land, of heritage and innovation, of community and hope. The Bournemouth University Harmony Centre brings these truths to life, inspiring us to learn from nature’s wisdom and to work together for a more balanced, compassionate world.”
“I am very keen for our students and the whole community to get involved — to listen to the world around us,to share ideas, and to help shape a future where learning and harmony bring healing to both people and planet. And for me, in the spirit of our university’s motto, Discere Mutari Est — To Learn is to Change — harmony begins when we open our minds, our hearts, and our actions to change, and in doing so, become part of the healing of the world.”
