Beyond the creative industries

This report investigates the extent and types of interaction between the creative industries and the wider UK economy.

This report investigates the extent and types of interaction between the creative industries and the wider UK economy.

Key findings:

  • Policymakers need robust methodologies to map the creative economy if they are to identify the mechanisms by which creative activities, rather than just industries, support innovation and if they are to consider policies to encourage them.

  • Thirty-four per cent of the overall creative workforce (including support workers in creative businesses) is embedded in non-creative sectors.

  • Currently, UK policymakers have to use much weaker data than their US, Australian and New Zealand counterparts.

There has been insufficient evidence about the interaction between the creative industries and innovation in the wider economy. Consequently, there is an unhealthy disconnect between innovation policy and the creative industries.

Creative industries should play a greater role in the UK's innovation system than has previously been recognised by policymakers. 

The UK should start to think in terms of a 'creative economy' rather than a set of 'creative industries'.

Author:
Nesta