The Role of the University in Enhancing Creative Clusters

This report considers the role universities can play in supporting growth in their local creative industries with a comparative study of the West Midlands Combined Authority and the Cardiff Capital Region.

Creative industries in the two regions have the potential to deliver a raft of economic and social benefits to their regions as fast-growing dynamic sectors. The economic potential of the creative industries has led them to being recognised in policy, at the local, regional, and national level. The creative sector has been an element of UK Government economic policy for the last two decades (McRobbie 2002; Garnham 2005) and most recent iterations of UK policy including the upcoming Sector Vision.

One key obstacle for the growth of the creative industries is the presence of skills shortages in specific sub-sectors and roles. In recent years, the responsibility for upskilling workers in the sector has shifted from Industry to Higher Education providers. Universities are expected to play many roles within their regions, including being attractors of skilled personnel, hubs of innovation and R&D spill over, anchor institutions and globally competitive centres of educational excellence. It may be that universities are being pulled in too many directions, not least from the fragmentation in national governance. With responsibility for Higher Education courses in the hands of the Department for Education (DfE), much of the research function governed via the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and some aspects of innovation in the hands of DCMS, it remains an open question how well-suited universities are to closing skills gaps in the creative industries.