It is increasingly recognised that the UK’s ability to address urgent social issues and to remain competitive in global markets rests on a commitment to innovation – the successful exploitation of new ideas. Solutions to social problems such as terrorism, climate change, public health issues and ageing populations will require fresh thinking and the combined use of technological, cultural, social and economic change.
Knowledge, whether wholly new or adapted from existing resources, provides the base for the innovation process. It provides the novelty and variety that drives innovation onwards.
The AHRC has a strategic role in supporting arts and humanities’ knowledge creation and transfer within the innovation system. It also undertakes intermediary and brokerage activities to bring different participants in the innovation system together.
Arts and humanities research and innovation
Arts and humanities research offers new approaches that can have profound impacts on society. It broadens our knowledge and provides new ideas that can be applied directly in innovation. It also illuminates the ethical foundations for the innovation system as a whole.
The arts and humanities contribute to a constantly growing body of knowledge on human experience, agency, identity and expression, as constructed through language, literature, artefacts and performance. This knowledge nourishes the UK’s cultural existence, and inspires creative behaviour, as well as innovative goods and services.
The AHRC and innovation
The AHRC’s funding of collaborative, team-based research, its support for postgraduate training, its joint strategic initiatives with other Research Councils and its experience-based approach to knowledge transfer provide a distinctive and increasingly effective model in supporting arts and humanities researchers in making wider contributions to innovation, society and the economy.
Arts and Humanities Research and Innovation: an AHRC/NESTA publication (232kb)
The joint AHRC/NESTA publication Arts and Humanities Research and Innovation considers ways in which arts and humanities research contributes to the innovation system. The main focus is on the distinctive role and nature of the arts and humanities in the knowledge creation process, and on how that knowledge is utilised by society. The report also considers the institutional role that the AHRC plays as a funder and as an intermediary in the innovation system.
Please contact Christopher Walker, Impact Evaluation Manager, if you would like to discuss this paper.
AHRC Arts, Humanities and Innovation Seminar, 24th November 2008
Enabling Innovation: creative investments in Arts and Humanities Research
This event reaffirmed the vital contribution that arts and humanities research makes to the UK’s prosperity and quality of life.
Enabling Innovation Seminar - note of proceedings (172kb)
Creative Innovation in the Arts and Humanities (219kb)