The writer is co-chair of the UK’s Creative Industries Council and chairman of the council of the Royal College of Art.
Beyoncé is very big in South Yorkshire. Few people know that. In an industrial estate, just north of Doncaster, they digitally design and physically create the massive platforms for live music touring. Some of the world’s biggest stars stay here while they rehearse for their concerts, including Beyoncé.
Production Park is an example of R&D-driven innovation in the creative industries. The same goes for the new virtual TV and film production facility next to a biscuit factory in northwest London. There at Garden Studios, they need a new generation skilled in traditional production, live events and real-time game engineering if our screen industries (a fifth of the entire creative sector UK) want to continue their rapid growth.
“Createch” – or when creative design meets technology – is a huge national opportunity. Great economic and cultural value will be drawn for the UK in the years to come through fashion, advertising and publishing as well as screen and music. It’s something that those who make video games knew from the beginning.
The creative industries make up 6% of the UK economy, employ 2.3 million people and have seen healthy growth even in times of stagnation (with the exception of pandemic shutdowns). The sector now takes R&D as seriously as areas already recognized for it, such as life sciences, automotive and aerospace. It’s actually bigger than those three together. But for a fragmented sector defined less than 25 years ago, often dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises and dispersed in clusters, the creative industries have been a bit difficult for policymakers to grasp. This must change.
There are positive signs. In 2017, I offered a small investment in creative clusters to Greg Clark, then business secretary. The idea was to drive growth across nations and regions with partnerships between universities and local businesses. To its credit, the UK government’s funding agency for research and innovation made available £56 million, which over four years was matched by £252 million from industry and other sources.
Applied research from universities, connected to 2,500 SMEs, has resulted in 700 R&D projects, 227 new start-ups and 558 new products and services for sub-sectors such as screen, games and fashion. There have been games that tackle obesity; robot avatars to help in disaster areas; virtual reality to reduce the pain of childbirth; high value sustainable yarn from recycled fibers; a leather substitute derived from mushrooms — and these are just a few of the projects supported.
The Creative Industries Council, a joint government-business body, will soon release a vision for the sector with ideas to drive inclusive growth through 2030. The sector must recruit better from all communities and talents, to benefit the whole country.
There are three important themes to address if we are to achieve this. First, continued support for innovative clusters. As the digital industrial revolution continues, we need to drive the next wave of music technology, advertising technology, and publishing technology. While UKRI has supported a few creative sector initiatives, it has been slow to fund the next iteration of their success with clusters. I hope we can find a way to solve this problem. It matters.
Second, we need to encourage more university spin-off funds for createch. For example, the Royal College of Art has organized some 80 spin-off companies through its entrepreneurship centre, InnovationRCA. Some of them come from its joint program with Imperial College London, where the teams are made up of designers, ceramists, engineers and data scientists. From this interdisciplinary richness, many innovations are emerging: spin-offs include methane-sensing masks for cattle; and a device for capturing particulate pollution from tires; new filters for street drains are in the design stage. It should be remembered that RCA graduates include entrepreneur Sir James Dyson as well as artist David Hockney.
Third, our industry must define the skills it needs for the future, with entry and career paths for the next generation of creators. We have not been good enough in this area. At a top academy last month, a group of 17-year-olds told me about their tastes in film, music, fashion and games, but had no idea what jobs and skills these areas represented.
Stem skills — science, technology, engineering, and math — are very important in createch. But we like to add A for Arts to that, doing “Steam”. Wasn’t the last industrial revolution powered by steam? There is a lesson here for us.