Supporting innovation in the creative industries through data reporting

Despite the economic and social significance of the Creative Industries (CI) in the UK, the mechanisms of innovation and research and development (R&D) within the CI remain poorly understood. Using innovation studies as a framework and undertaking a case study of the £56m Creative Industries Clusters Programme (CICP) (2018–2023) as part of the UK's Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF), this article evaluates reporting and data collection activities to ascertain how successful they were at capturing and measuring innovation through R&D. Interviews with the leaders of the nine UK-based Creative Research & Development Partnerships (CRDPs) that formed the CICP explore and contextualise their experiences conducting R&D activities and reporting.

Our findings highlight several tensions within the data collection activities of the CRDPs around the fast-moving pace of R&D activity, the uniqueness of the reporting structure, and the difficulties in capturing non-economic impact. These are related to larger issues around the ambiguity in defining R&D, innovation and the relationship between them in the context of the CI and attending to them as a complex ecosystem. We advocate for a nuanced approach to understanding CI innovation, making the case for a common language around R&D, and a co-creation approach to metric development that is capable of capturing non-economic value and networking effects. This balances the need for creating reproducible and comparable data with responsiveness to individual projects. By addressing these aspects, we aim to show how a more holistic approach to reporting and data collection in the CI can provide the evidence base for better understanding innovation and the support it requires.

image credit: Data Lab Dialogue by Hanna Barakat & Cambridge Diversity Fund | Better Images of AI