Creative placemaking: The role of universities in supporting cultural and creative industries

Although universities and creative industries may sometimes look like unlikely allies, the potential of devolved administrations and their Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to stand at the nexus of unlocking the skills, networks and investment needed to catalyse growth is key to embedding the new government’s industrial strategy in the creative sector.  

The creative industries are described in the DCMS’s Creative Industries Sector Vision of 2022 as businesses with creativity at their heart. They include design, music, publishing, architecture, film and video, crafts, visual arts, fashion, TV and radio, advertising, literature, computer games and the performing arts. 

As we've heard from Lisa Nandy, the new Culture Secretary, the government is seeking to boost our creative industries through meaningful partnership, simultaneously boosting the economy, creating opportunities and showcasing UK talent on the world stage. 

‘Devolution deserts’

Universities have a key role to play in this, catalysing placemaking growth in the sector. Through co-created trailblazer deals, it is possible to see how and why collaboration around the culture portfolio of devolution deals can help drive deliverables in aligned areas. 

This growth will likely be accentuated by Labour’s recent invitation to local authorities in ‘devolution deserts’ to take more power from Westminster across a number of policy areas. 

HEI partnerships are key to delivering devolution of both power and the creative industries out of their London-centric base. They can work with the new levers within their devolved contexts to create investable propositions for inclusive growth, working with combined authorities to co-develop investment funds. 

Economically this adds value – extending the impact of investments made – and creates a more diverse and sustainable economic mix in cities and towns across the country as well as a more resilient base for the range of cultural partners that work with combined authorities. 

Widening access

Additionally, in line with the new government’s commitment to widening access to the creative industries, through closer partnership working HEIs can better inform policymaking at a devolved level to enhance connecting culture to the latest R&D and lived student experience. 

This speaks to the fact that, in recent years, UK universities have made increasing investments in creativity and culture. Indeed, many HEIs receive investment from Arts Council England (ACE). 

Examples include Derby Theatre based at Derby University, the Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Kent, and Teesside University’s Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) – all demonstrating the community enhancing impact of HEI/creative partnerships. 

The power these new deals have in shaping HEIs’ strategy on inward investment, as well as the role of a university in unlocking opportunities, cannot be overlooked.

Sustainable talent pipeline

Devolution can also enable the co-designing of new academic portfolios in response to identified skills needs, securing a sustainable talent pipeline in the creative sector while simultaneously fitting in with the new government’s Skills England agenda. 

Exemplifying this, Northumbria University’s cultural partnerships with local and national creative organisations are at the core of their whole strategy and are central to how the university conceives itself as an anchor institution. 

It has an ambitious and distinct portfolio of partnership agreements with several national cultural organisations like the BFI, but also with many ACE-funded organisations based within the North East, including New Writing North, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Live Theatre and Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums. 

Effective policymaking

Devolution in England is in its early phases and the creative industries are emerging from this period as key to early-stage change making. HEIs and the creative industries sharing best practice across the UK is vital to catalysing understanding, growth and investment opportunities. 

Through effective policymaking that is co-created across sectors, we can unlock the opportunity of our HEIs for the communities and cultural partners in their places and in doing so create a more equitable and sustainable system of creative exchange. 

The story of creative place within HEIs cannot be written in isolation and cannot be dictated by Whitehall: there must be a compulsion on universities and the arts to engage with the environment of devolution and of placemaking to keep them well integrated into key policy platforms.  

Professor Katy Shaw is Director of the AHRC Creative Communities programme and Director of University Partnerships at Northumbria University.
Darren Henley CBE is Chief Executive Officer at Arts Council England. 
 creativecommunities.uk/ | northumbria.ac.uk/ | artscouncil.org.uk/
 @ProfKatyShaw | @NorthumbriaUni | @HENLEYDARREN | @ace_national

This article is a summary of a longer piece that was published as part of a collection of essays on the economic and social benefits universities have on their local communities. The collection was published in memory of Lord Bob Kerslake, Chair of the UPP Foundation’s Civic University Commission (2018-19), who died last year.