Creative Industries Clusters Programme Booklet

Introducing the Creative
Industries Clusters Programme

–
Introducing the Creative Industries Clusters Programme #CreativeClusters #CIPolicyandEvidence #IndustrialStrategy
03Introduction
04 Bristol + Bath Creative RD
06 Business of Fashion, Textiles Technology
08 Clwstwr Creadigol
10 Creative Informatics
12 Creative Media Labs
14 Future Fashion Factory
16 Future Screens NI
18 InGAME: Innovation for Games and Media Enterprise
20StoryFutures
22 Creative Industries Policy Evidence Centre
24 StoryFutures Academy: The National Centre for Immersive Storytelling
26Credits
–

3
Introduction
Twenty years ago the UK first defined and then mapped its Creative
Industries. Since then there has been an increasing recognition of the
contribution of the Creative Industries to UK culture and to the UK economy.
With Creative Industries now worth over £100bn per annum, the sector is
larger than Life Sciences, Oil and Gas and Aerospace sectors combined
- and growing faster too.
Research over the last two decades has shown that one of the key drivers of
this success is that creative businesses thrive when they cluster together;
trading with each other, sharing skills, expertise and the very flexible
workforce that characterises much of the creative sector. Within all successful
clusters a key role is played by the universities, not only providing skilled
graduates but supporting innovation, experimentation and, in the most
successful examples, research insight.
As part of the UK Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, which seeks to support
research and innovation lead growth in key sectors of the UK economy, one
year ago the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and its partners
in UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) challenged creative clusters across the
UK to develop Research and Development partnerships between industry and
universities that could drive measurable economic growth within five years.
The response has been astonishing. Universities have worked closely together
to harness the multiple research disciplines that drive innovation in the
creative sector from Informatics and AI to Design, Engineering to Theatre
Studies, Perceptual Psychology to Creative Writing. Across the creative
industries of fashion, film and television, design, computer games, music,
performance and the emerging creative technology sector, global players and
high growth SMEs have joined the partnerships to provide industry leadership
and set real world challenges.
As you will see from their profiles, the nine partnerships, which are spread
across the four nations of the UK, are of exceptional quality in terms of
research capability, growth plans and the industrial partners who drive them.
But these are just the most advanced of over forty bids that we received
from all regions and countries. The Creative Industries Clusters Programme
we have embarked on is an experiment in demonstrating that Research and
Innovation can drive growth in the UK’s already world-class Creative Industries.
Should it prove successful, there is plenty of appetite and capability for
further investment.
Professor Andrew Thompson
Executive Chair, AHRC
@ProfAThompson

–
Bristol
+ Bath
credit: Joanie Lemercier’s ‘Millennium Constellations’ Layered Realities 5G Showcase, March ‘18

5
About
The Bristol + Bath Creative Industries Cluster (BB CREATIVE RD) is a
partnership aiming to improve the performance of the Creative Industries
in the Bristol and Bath region. The Cluster brings together the Watershed
and four universities in the region, working with a range of industry partners
from television, theatre, publishing and computing.
The Cluster’s core focus is working in partnership with industry to gain
understanding about user engagement in new platforms. The partnership will
be working at sites where 5G connectivity, XR technologies and live arts overlap.
The Programme
The programme is structured round an RD fellowship programme leading
into a series of major themed projects.
The model puts inclusion and new talent at its heart to identify and support
the thought leaders of tomorrow. Every programme will include New Talent
Fellows, supported to think about innovation in a digital first way. In turn,
New Talent Fellows will co-produce skills workshops for the next generation,
creating a radically inclusive leadership model.
The Partnership
The Programme is designed as a collaboration with partners in the creative
industries, helping to create a range of different impacts for companies and
customers. Our goal is to lay the foundations for the Bristol + Bath Cluster
to be internationally successful by 2030. The Cluster brings together UWE
Bristol, Watershed, and the Universities of Bath, Bristol and Bath Spa along
with industry partners.
Bristol + Bath Creative RD
Contact
Prof Jon Dovey
Email: jonathan.dovey@uwe.ac.uk

–
Business
of Fashion,
Textiles
Technology

About
The Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFTT) Creative RD
Partnership will focus on delivering innovation within the entire fashion
and textile creative production and supply chain. The project will foster
a new, creative business culture in which fashion, textile and technology
enterprises – from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to
multinational companies – can use RD as a route to growth. Special
attention will be placed on positioning industry as agents of new materials
and development.
Textile innovation in the UK is ranked as first in Europe and third
in the world, with the UK currently advancing developments in new,
environmentally sustainable materials and production technologies.
The project aims to exploit this considerable market advantage and design
influence, and respond to new challenges to sustain and accelerate the creative
economy of the Fashion, Textiles and Technology (FFT) sector. To tackle the
many challenges, the Partnership draws upon transdisciplinary research
expertise in design, computer science, chemistry, materials engineering,
economics, strategic management, anthropology and manufacturing.
The Programme
The work streams will include supporting SMEs and larger firms in
high-value collaborative RD; reimagining retail and customer experiences;
tackling industry reliance on synthetic materials, building an evidence
base; and developing new sustainable materials and markets.
The project will also work with education and training providers, as well
as government to develop a pipeline of talent for the FTT businesses of the
future. The Partnership will tap into the STEAM agenda to provide young
people with the support and skills needed for the sector to continue to
flourish in the future.
The cluster will be centred on the East London Fashion Textiles hub at East
Bank, Stratford and the production growth corridors of the Thames Gateway and
Lea Valley. These are areas where the value of FTT businesses is growing fast, and
where many opportunities exist for workspace and manufacturing expansion.
The Partnership
BFTT is led by University of the Arts London (UAL) in collaboration with UCL,
Loughborough University, University of Cambridge, University of Leeds and
Queen Mary University London, and includes specialist research centres in
sustainable fashion, circular design, fashion business and innovation, digital
anthropology, materials and textiles manufacturing.
Key industry partners include world-leading luxury and heritage designer
brands (including Kering, Smedley, Clarks), online retailer ASOS, and
destination stores including Selfridges. Other partners include the VA
Museum and cutting-edge technology VR/AI company, Holition. In all,
over 40 FTT businesses, industry trade associations and Local Enterprise
Partnerships will be involved.
Contact
Prof Graeme Evans
Email: g.l.evans@fashion.arts.ac.uk
Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology
7

Clwstwr
Creadigol
–

9
About
Cardiff is a national creative hub, with an increasing volume of film and
television produced in Wales. To continue to be competitive and grow
nationally and internationally, the industry in Wales must become a
home for innovation.
Clwstwr Creadigol’s focus is to deepen the culture of collaboration and
innovation so that media production can be sustained and grow, not just in
the Cardiff city area, but across Wales. If the Cardiff-centred screen sector
is to move beyond ‘show and go’ production, it needs to become a home for
innovation not only in creative production, but in business-critical applied
digital technologies, systems and business models.
The Cluster will involve the Cardiff City Region’s screen industries and
related supply chains, as well as the wider regional creative economy. This
will create a platform for independent companies, SMEs, micro-businesses
and freelancers to compete with global, highly integrated media companies.
The Programme
With their partners, the cluster will design an RD programme, with two
leading points of focus: a Screen Innovation System and News Innovation
Lab. Both will house academics and experts in creative and technical areas
including data analysis, market research, IP and business development to
support user and product testing.
To foster a culture of innovation in both screen and news, Clwstwr Creadigol
will deliver three distinct RD strands – sectoral, business and collaborative
– designed to develop new products, services and experiences. Strands will
include direct investment in specific projects of £3m over a four year period.
The Partnership
Clwstwr Creadigol is led by Cardiff University in partnership with University
of South Wales and Cardiff Metropolitan University. It brings together all
major Welsh broadcasters with independent film and television production
companies, Wales’s national companies and creative organisations, creative
co-working spaces, tech startups, strategic agencies, local authorities and
Welsh Government.
Clwstwr Creadigol
Contact
Kayleigh McLeod
Email: McLeodK1@cardiff.ac.uk

–
Creative
Informatics

About
Edinburgh’s creative industries have a vibrant creative and technology
culture and are characterised by pro-active networks across the data/tech
industry. They also have a lively design and advertising sector, the largest
concentration of major festivals in the world, and the highest cultural
employment in the UK.
The Creative Informatics Cluster aims to grow these creative industries by
building the number of existing businesses and creative entrepreneurs who can
confidently innovate with data. This will lead to creatives, rather than just the
IT/Software community, being in the driving seat of data-driven innovation.
The Programme
The programme has several objectives to grow the creative industries in
Edinburgh. The first one is to make the city a world class centre for creative
talent who are able to lead data-driven innovation in the creative industries.
To achieve this there will be three initiatives to develop local talent; Creative
Bridge, a ten-week programme enabling creative entrepreneurs to develop
and scale significant new enterprises, building their confidence to help their
colleagues and clients better understand the value of creativity; the Resident
Entrepreneur programme will support creative entrepreneurs financially and
provide a conducive environment within the HEIs or partner organisations to
develop their businesses; the Connected Innovators programme will provide
emerging leaders in the cluster with much needed time, space and financial
support to conduct RD to develop their business.
A second objective is to develop new data-driven products and services to
enhance audience engagement and create new modalities of experience. RD
projects will enable participants to experiment and explore technologies to
inspire new uses and new product development. Many of the projects will lead
to Minimum Viable Products which will be presented to investor communities.
A further goal is to support the new, innovative business models that
emerge from RD and the people-based objectives. Partnerships formed
will be able to draw on a range of academic expertise to support the
development of new business models, including creative entrepreneurship,
IP and technology law, digital cultural heritage, ethics, design, informatics,
and new transaction technologies.
Finally, the Challenge and Horizon projects will develop engagement with,
and access to, new local and global audiences and markets through
data-driven innovation.
The Partnership
The programme will be led by University of Edinburgh and delivered in
partnership with Edinburgh Napier University, Codebase, and Creative Edinburgh.
Creative Informatics
11
Contact
Prof Chris Speed
Email: c.speed@ed.ac.uk

Creative
Media Labs
–

13
About
Telling stories is a vital means by which we make sense of the world around
us. Technology and storytelling have always gone hand-in-hand, with each
new medium offering new ways of telling stories and engaging audiences.
Creative Media Labs will harness the latest digital technologies – especially
immersive and interactive tools and techniques – to develop innovative and
commercially viable models for the next generation of screen storytelling.
The cluster’s goal is to establish the Yorkshire and Humber screen industries
cluster as the UK centre of excellence in immersive and interactive digital
storytelling.
The Programme
The partnership will build on the recent investment, and growth of the
screen industries in the Yorkshire/Humber region. Creative Media Labs
will provide the necessary further support, investment and expertise to
facilitate the RD that many companies lack the capacity to undertake
on their own.
The programme will enable partners to co-create innovative storytelling
tools and models for the future, upskill and expand the workforce and
ensure the growth of this dynamic regional economy.
Creative Media Labs has established a substantial programme of funding,
responsive to the needs of industry.
Regional businesses will have significant opportunities to bid for those
funds. Initial projects include developing second-screen narrative
experiences; VR storytelling; interactive and immersive story-worlds;
personalised and responsive television narratives; the use of big data
and artificial intelligence to shape content creation and delivery; and the
development of tools for producing and delivering such experiences. New
themes will emerge as new challenges are identified.
The Partnership
Creative Media Labs is led by the University of York, in partnership with
Screen Yorkshire and the British Film Institute. It brings together film, TV,
games and digital media businesses from across the Yorkshire and Humber
region, in collaboration with leading national and international companies
and organisations, and a consortium of regional universities.
Creative Media Labs
Contact
Prof Damian Murphy
Email: damian.murphy@york.ac.uk

–

About
Nationwide, the fashion design industry contributes £28 billion to the
economy, with a growing workforce of nearly 900,000 – making it one of
the largest creative industries in the country. Collaborative research and
development by creative companies across the supply chain is fundamental
to ensuring future growth.
The vision for Future Fashion Factory is to transform the UK industry’s capacity
for new product innovation, and to reduce lead times and waste. This will be
done through the convergence of new digital and textile technologies within
the fashion design process.
The Programme
Future Fashion Factory will explore and develop new digital and advanced
textile technologies to boost the design of high value creative products,
helping designers and manufacturers work more collaboratively.
The project also aims to reinvigorate the hugely valuable industry on-shore
capacity and agility in design and manufacture – developing technologies
to increase productivity, shrink lead times, lower costs and reduce waste.
New fashion design programmes will also be created for undergraduate and
postgraduate students and researchers at Leeds. Industrial apprenticeship
programmes will aim to address a skills gap in the industry for designers
who can combine creativity with craft, design, science and technology skills.
The Partnership
The programme is led by the School of Design at the University of Leeds.
Partners of the five-year project include the Royal College of Art, Burberry,
the British Fashion Council, UKFT, Yorkshire Textiles, Wools of New Zealand,
Abraham Moon Sons, the Textile Centre of Excellence, and Camira Fabrics.
15
Future Fashion Factory
Contact
Lee Mason
Email: L.A.Mason@leeds.ac.uk

Future
Screens NI
–

17
About
Responding to industry needs, Future Screens NI will deliver expert technical
skills, opportunity and growth across film and broadcast, animation, games
and immersive technologies and industries in Northern Ireland.
Through the partnership, Northern Ireland’s creative companies will develop
strategies to collaborate, grow productivity and maximise their global
potential, delivering new jobs and a £400 million increase in GVA to boost
the local economy.
The Programme
The programme will transform innovation and job creation – and
with creative industries hubs in Belfast, Newry, Coleraine and
Derry~Londonderry, the impact will be region-wide.
Addressing challenges and building on existing strengths in creative industries
in the region, areas of focus will include narrative and storytelling in digital
content, applications of VR/AR in health, tourism and engineering, development
of a games nexus, expanding capacity for large scale film and TV production
and enhancing the high-level skills pipeline in 2D and 3D animation.
The Partnership
This innovative partnership brings together the University of Ulster, Queen’s
University Belfast and industrial partners at the forefront of the creative
economy in Northern Ireland.
Future Screens NI
Contact
Prof Paul Moore
Email: gp.moore@ulster.ac.uk

–
InGAME

About
InGAME: Innovation for Games and Media Enterprise establishes a dedicated
creative research and development centre at the heart of Dundee’s games
cluster with a view to driving product, service and experience innovation across
the industry.
As cultural artefacts, video games are complex multi-faceted products
with multiple creative practices, bringing together technical and commercial
expertise in a disruptive and precarious environment. Led by Abertay
University, in partnership with the University of Dundee and the University
of St Andrews, InGAME forms a collaborative network around the expertise
and experience held in the Dundee games cluster, the HEI partnership, the
wider creative district, and sector support agencies to intensify economic
growth, sector diversification and cultural engagement.
The Programme
Three high-level challenges face the cluster. These are, firstly, creative risk, as
the financial risk that comes with developing speculative original intellectual
property for the games market is often fatal for start-up and micro-SMEs.
Secondly, technology innovations within the cluster, though often iterative,
inventive and ingenious, are not systematically captured or tested for
generalisation or re-use value. This leads to missed commercial opportunities.
Finally, although the cluster is comprised primarily of mid-sized SMEs and an
even larger number of startups and micro-SMEs, these smaller organisations
often lack the commercial expertise to innovate new business models and
recognise new market opportunities.
In response, a series of goals have been identified to create the conditions for
sustainable creative speculation, technology innovation, economic growth and
cluster intensification.
These goals include setting up new modes of collaboration among industry,
HEIs, and sector support agencies; developing the cluster’s capacity to exploit
technical innovations and improving access to high cost development services
through a network of HEI industry partners; increasing access to postgraduate
research, creative and design, and the development of a workforce to enable
creation of original content, and building a new generation of creative RD
practitioners.
The Partnership
The programme is led by Abertay University, in partnership with the University
of Dundee and the University of St Andrews, in collaboration with local industry
stakeholders. These include 4J Studios, All4Games, BBC, Beano Studios, Biome
Collective, DeltaDNA, Microsoft, Outplay Entertainment and Sony Interactive
Entertainment Europe.
Business and cluster development is supported by Creative Dundee, Creative
Scotland, Elevator UK, Interface, Dundee City Council, Scottish Enterprise, TIGA,
Ukie, UK Games Fund and VA Dundee.
Contact
Prof Sean Taylor
Email: sean.taylor@abertay.ac.uk
19
InGAME: Innovation for
Games and Media Enterprise

StoryFutures
–

21
About
The stories of tomorrow will reach audiences in new and complex ways,
fuelled by immersive technologies, data-driven personalisation, smart devices
and AI, alongside evolutions in contemporary screen form that threaten our
very conception of the ‘screen’.
These changes bring new challenges to the screen industries – to their
storytelling forms and techniques, business models, value networks and
workflows. StoryFutures responds to these challenges by providing an RD
base for screen industries.
The Programme
StoryFutures has four objectives that aim to deliver cross-sector innovation:
1. Innovation in story form, business models, creative data flows and
audience insight
2. Generate regional economic growth by brokering collaborative partnerships
3. Enhance Cluster Connectivity by strengthening cross-sector and
region networking
4. Develop Next Generation Talent, emphasising increased female
representation, whose skills span the arts, humanities, social, formal
and applied sciences.
The programme will follow four core themes. The first, StoryLabs, will look at
how creatives harness emergent and established storytelling forms on new
platforms. Use-case prototypes and pilots will be developed that respond to
industry-wide barriers to growth in immersive and beyond.
The second aims to provide SMEs with development support, improving
networking, increasing additives to access further funding, and developing
new business models. The programme will review value networks – the
production networks, revenue streams, collaborations and business models
and IP opportunities for Next Generation stories.
The third theme focuses on how the increasing volumes of data/metadata
in production can be better managed and processed to drive commercial
prospects and generate greater collaboration – enabling development of new
tools and efficiency gains. Finally, the programme will test new productions
with audiences, utilising cognitive psychology, neuroscience and media
research to provide rich insights that can fuel commercial growth.
The Partnership
The Cluster is located in one of the UK’s most important creative clusters,
spanning a unique fusion of creative audiovisual and technology companies
that form a gateway in and out of London, the potential of which has been
long-overlooked.
The partnership brings together Royal Holloway University of London,
Pinewood Studios, Immerse UK, Pact, Ukie, British Screen Advisory Council,
Resource Productions, the BFI, Connect TVT, Imaginarium Studios, The
National Gallery, BBC Studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Endemol-
Shine UK, Double Negative, n:Dreams and Heathrow, as well as our Local
Economic Partnerships: EM3, TVBucks and TVBerks.
Contact
Anthony Hughes
Email: Anthony.Hughes@rhul.ac.uk
StoryFutures

–
Creative
Industries Policy
Evidence Centre

About
The vision of the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (the PEC) is
to provide independent research and authoritative recommendations that will
aid the development of policies for the UK’s creative industries, contributing to
their continued success.
The Programme
The Centre will provide a step-change for our three main stakeholders – industry,
policymakers and the wider research community – in the quality of evidence for
the creative industries, tasking some of the best researchers across the UK with
answering some of the most pressing questions about the sector.
The centre will aim to engage everyone in our mission – from the creative
freelancer to the multinational: anyone interested in research related to the
creative industries.
The Partnership
The centre will be led by innovation foundation Nesta, and involves a wide
consortium of UK universities including Birmingham; Cardiff; Edinburgh;
Glasgow; Work Foundation at Lancaster University; LSE; Manchester; Newcastle;
Sussex, and Ulster.
Alongside these institutions, the Centre will be working with a broad and
inclusive group of partners from across the creative industries, including the
Creative Industries Federation. Initial industry partners also include Creative
England, the British Film Institute and Tech Nation.
23
Creative Industries Policy Evidence Centre
Contact
Anana Zabow
Email: enquiries@pec.ac.uk

–
StoryFutures
Academy

25
About
This project aims to establish a new centre of excellence in immersive
storytelling jointly funded by the Creative Industries Clusters Programme
and Audiences of the Future.
It will achieve this via experimental labs, workshops, placements and courses.
The aim is to build the StoryFutures Academy, a centre that will support
and co-fund dozens of real immersive productions placing story at the heart
of everything.
The Programme
The centre will aim to bring about an immediate step-change in the core
screen sector’s engagement with immersive narrative forms, developing a
national base of creative and commercial talent that can establish the UK as
a world-leader in this sector.
The centre will work to identify skills gaps and construct courses that bring
together higher education and industry to respond to these. Diversity will be
embedded in the training approach to make sure the full breadth of UK is
involved in immersive storytelling. The next generation of talent, who are fluent
in immersive storytelling techniques, will have access to an alumni network and
companies to fully develop their creative careers.
A key aim of the centre is the development of a diverse and experienced base
of trainers, skilled in the cross-disciplinary art of immersive storytelling, who
are able to develop a talent pipeline long after the funding period has ended.
In line with these goals, the project aims to establish a national Creative
Industries Clusters Programme Network for Immersive Excellence.
The Partnership
The Academy is funded by the CICP and the Audience of the Future.
The project is set to evolve through a partnership between the National Film
and Television School and Royal Holloway, University of London.
They will be working alongside world-leading partners from immersive
theatre (Punchdrunk), gaming (UK Games Fund), film (BFI), television (Sky),
performance capture (Imaginarium Studios), virtual reality (Rewind VR),
equipment manufacturers (Sony Interactive Entertainment, HTC Vive) and
immersive experts (Digital Catapult), along with leading writers, performers
and directors.
Contact
Vicky Hewlett
Email: vhewlett@nfts.co.uk
StoryFutures Academy: The National Centre
for Immersive Storytelling

Introducing the Creative Industries Clusters Programme #CreativeClusters #CIPolicyandEvidence #IndustrialStrategyIntroducing the Creative Industries Clusters Programme
–
About Arts Humanities
Research Council
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funds
world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of
subjects from history and archaeology to philosophy and
languages. The Council also funds more contemporary
research including the design and effectiveness of digital
content and the impact of artificial intelligence.
ahrc.ukri.org/clusters
@ahrcpress
Mike Collins
Head of Communications, AHRC
Mike.Collins@ahrc.ukri.org
Industrial Strategy
Challenge Fund:
The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund brings together
the UK’s world-leading research with business to meet
the major industrial and societal challenges of our time.
It provides funding and support to UK businesses and
researchers, part of the government’s £4.7 billion increase
in research and development over the next 4 years. It
plays a central role in the Government’s modern Industrial
Strategy. It is run by UK Research and Innovation, which
comprises the Research Councils, Innovate UK and
Research England.
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Creative Industries Clusters Programme Booklet