University of Leeds
Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Impact Project
Project Summary
Knowledge Transfer in the Arts and Humanities
In 2005, The Schools of Performance and Cultural Industries, and Education at the University of Leeds were awarded a three year fellowship to explore the relationship between university research in the arts and humanities and innovation processes in the creative industries. The co-directors of the project are Professors Calvin Taylor and David Smith, and from 2006-2007, Dr Roberta Comunian undertook the role of Fellow. She is now a Lecturer in Human Geography in the School of Geography at the University of Southampton with a specialist interest in network analysis, the creative industries and urban geography.
The creative industries are seen across the world as one of the key sectors of the future and governments are actively developing support measures to capitalise on a wide variety of their claimed impacts. In the UK the creative industries are regarded both nationally and regionally as critical tools for economic and cultural adaptation and development.
Despite this recognition there is very little documented evidence of the nature, scope and impact of knowledge transfer activities in the creative sector, or of the range of interactions between the research base and research users that supports it. Whilst there is a growing interest in the phenomenon of collaboration (for example, Brickwood et al, (2007)) and a growing belief in the possible distinctiveness of the knowledge exchange process in this context (Crossick, 2006), there has been very little work to describe, analyse and understand the possible role that research plays in the creative industries.
The project has combined case study methodologies (including interviews with academic, academic managers and industrial collaborators) with a thorough literature search in the areas of knowledge transfer, the creative industries, innovation and their dynamic relationships. This project is one of a number of initiatives being supported by the AHRC in the fields of impact evaluation and knowledge transfer.
Project Activities
Our initial exploration of this topic looked at the evolution of the knowledge exchange imperative within Higher Education and explored the possible implications for the arts and humanities. We presented our initial ideas as 'Knowledge Transfer in Arts and Humanities: Scoping Impact Processes' which was a revised version of a paper presented at the AHRC/Arts Council Seminar: Interrogating Impact Assessment (Medical Research Council, London 15 March 2006. This was followed by 'Knowledge Transfer in UK Arts and Humanities: Scoping Impact and Trends' which was presented at the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) Annual Conference (12 - 14 December 2006, Brighton (UK). A later iteration of this paper 'Knowledge Transfer in the Arts and Humanities: Policy Images and Institutional Realities' is currently in preparation which draws heavily upon our case study and interview work.
Our first publication from the project 'Developing Relationships between Higher Education, Enterprise and Innovation in the Creative Industries' was published in December 2007 in Entrepreneurship in the Creative Industries: An International Perspective edited by Colette Henry (Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) and published by Edward Elgar. This book chapter explores the nature of the relationships between higher education and the creative industries, particularly with respect to their apparent intrinsically regional dimension. The discussion is contextualised within theorisations of regional innovation and the insight this is now bringing to thinking about new models of innovation. The implications of this were explored in our presentation to the Triple Helix 6th Biennial International Conference on University, Industry and Government Linkages: Emerging Models for the Entrepreneurial University: Regional Diversities or Global Convergence? Entitled 'A new 'Triple Helix'? Universities, Creative Industries and Cultural Policy' (16 - 18 May 2007, Singapore). This discussion is extended in a new publication currently in preparation entitled The Role of Universities in the Regional Creative Economy: Hidden Protagonists or New Actors? to be published later in 2008.
The specific theorisation of knowledge exchange processes in the arts and humanities is the subject of a new paper 'Universities in the Cultural Economy: Bridging Innovation in Arts and Humanities and the Creative Industries' which will be presented for the first time at the International Conference on Cultural Policy Research in Istanbul (20th-24th August, 2008). A brief note on this topic 'Exploring Knowledge Transfer in the Arts and Humanities' was included in Issue 269 of Regions, the newsletter of the Regional Studies Association (Spring, 2008).
Our work has led us to focus on the academic practices and discourses that inform the participation in knowledge exchange activities with the creative industries (and in some cases other industrial sectors). To that end we have made to date visits to ten institutions that offer performing arts, music and fine art (either singly or in combination). Our sample of institutions reflect both the diversity of the HE sector and its geographical contexts. In each case we have conducted interviews reflecting both 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' perspectives. We find that there is a willing engagement both in the practice of knowledge exchange and in discussion of its relationship to other areas of academic practice across the range of positions occupied by our informants. We also find that there is a rich 'semantic' dialogue about the meanings of the term knowledge exchange - both in relation to disciplinary practices and purposes, and to institutional contexts, and a concern with how the purposes of HE are evolving. Our project has worked on the following topics:
1. Knowledge exchange - definitions and meanings
2. The practice of knowledge exchange (types of engagement, styles of relationship, etc.)
3. The structural context for knowledge exchange - departmental, institutional, etc.
4. Capturing value from knowledge exchange activities (academic, strategic, financial, etc.)
5. Knowledge transfer - facilitating factors and inhibitors
We are currently in the process of writing for both peer-reviewed and policy outlets.
Contacts
The key contacts for this project are:
Professor Calvin Taylor, School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds
(Tel: 0044 113 3439069; E-mail: c.f.taylor@leeds.ac.uk).
Professor David Smith, The Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University
(Tel: 0044 141 331 3637; E-mail: D.N.Smith@gcal.ac.uk).