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Centre for the Creative Economy

Research projects

The Centre for the Creative Economy at Cardiff University focuses on analysing and enhancing the social, cultural, and economic value of the creative and cultural industries.

The Centre’s research team is made up of multidisciplinary academics and focuses on interdisciplinary and collaborative research.

The Centre is highly engaged with the creative and cultural industries and has a strong network of collaborators, advancing research in the field with a strong focus on impacts and policymaking. The Centre publishes a range of outputs, including policy briefs and academic publications.

Welsh public interest journalism, integral to democracy, is at a critical juncture due to declining readership and digital disruption. This sector, essential for civic engagement and oversight of power, is confronted with the complexities of Wales’s distinct cultural and linguistic identity. This study conducted by the Centre for the Creative Economy at Cardiff University and funded by the Welsh Government seeks to bridge knowledge gaps and chart a course for the industry's future by providing stakeholders with actionable insights.

Read the Mapping Public Interest Journalism report.

Creative Economy Atlas Cymru is a platform to showcase the creative might of Wales: to highlight its strengths and explore its depths, to help make connections and to be a useful tool for those who want to learn more about Wales’ creative ecosystem.

This Atlas is a work in progress and will continue to evolve and grow as the creative industries do.

The Atlas explores the geographical distribution and scale of the creative industries across Wales broken down by creative sector. You can use it to discover creative industries activity throughout Wales, such as numbers of companies and employees in specific creative sectors, where coworking spaces are located or the geography of creative cluster projects.

While there has been consistent communication and collaboration between Bristol and Cardiff in recent years, particularly around R&D programmes, a number of linked factors combine to make a more extensive look at connections and potential opportunities for a more active partnership between the two cities and wider regions timely.

The University of Bristol and Cardiff University agreed to provide seed funding to explore the proposition of a Bristol/Cardiff Creative Industries Axis in more granular detail. The project aims to capture in detail the current position and visible development trends of the creative industries in the two cities and wider regions and evaluate that detail, including in the context of wider economic and political factors, to generate a set of recommended actions or potential future activities, if appropriate.

To truly represent the people and stories of Wales, we need a news industry which better reflects our communities. In order to create the systemic change which has been recognised as a need by the Wales Public Interest Journalism Working Group, we must first understand the diversity and needs of the sector. We aim to explore the experience of individuals and organisations around recruitment, retention and progression opportunities with the local journalism sector. We will share the research findings widely and use them to inform future strategic and targeted interventions.

In advance of the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, BBC commissioned the Centre for the Creative Economy to produce a report focusing on the impact of the Welsh rebirth of Doctor Who on Cardiff and South Wales. The BBC’s Charter sets out the need for the corporation “to reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all of the United Kingdom’s nations and regions and, in doing so, support the creative economy across the United Kingdom.” The report examines the impact of Doctor Who’s move to South Wales – as well as the parallel development of the drama studios in Roath Lock in Cardiff Bay – through that lens. The research captures the views of key industry stakeholders who have been participants in and observers of the media and creative industries in South Wales.

We are a partner in a new research network commissioned to set the agenda for future innovation in virtual production (VP) technology, content creation and consumption. The network convenes five project partners, led by the University of York, with Cardiff University; the University of Edinburgh; Ulster University and UAL’s Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology. XR Network+ Virtual Production in the Digital Economy provides funding and support to researchers working in virtual production and XR technologies. The project will establish a 10-year network and research agenda for VP-related content creation and consumption for the creative and digital economies. Through a network of partnerships, XR Network+ will support growth and facilitate collaboration between academia and industry on a national stage.

With implications for the content we watch, listen to and enjoy everyday, the future of broadcasting touches upon our collective imagination and identities. It also presents legislative challenges and powers over public service media are hotly contested, with ongoing discussions at both ends of the M4 about the potential for devolved nations to take ownership of their own broadcasting services. The IWA collaborated with Centre for the Creative Economy researchers to lead a research project assessing the current state of regulation and accountability for broadcasters in Wales, and surveying the options available for future models of regulation.

This mapping report provides a record of creative hubs across Wales, along with an overview of their role, their challenges and their drive to deliver social and economic impact. This report charts creative hubs across Wales, looking first at geographical location and concentration. It details profiles of creative hubs in terms of business model, services, number of members and audience engagement. The mapping also analyses the types of impact creative hubs have and how they align with the global Sustainable Development Goals. This analysis of creative hubs across Wales (rural and city-based) builds on previous work of mapping creative hubs in Wales (2017-18).

This project involved the creation of a survey for Cultural Freelancers Wales (CFW), data analysis and report preparation. The report analysed the changes to freelancers’ lives, looked at the current and future outlook for freelancers, and asked what - if any - progress has been made to rebalance the cultural sector as it progresses on the road to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. CFW contracted the Creative Economy team at Cardiff University to run the survey and analyse the data.

Connect for Creativity was an 18-month project led by the British Council, in collaboration with ATÖLYE and Abdullah Gül University in Turkey, BIOS in Greece and Nova Iskra in Serbia. The project aimed to form a network of creative hubs across Europe to foster creative exploration and collaboration that contributes to building a more cohesive, open and connected civil society. As part of this project, the Centre for the Creative Economy contributed a paper on creative hubs as enablers and curators of intercultural dialogue.

Research was carried out through a survey analysis across these four countries with 98 creative hubs and four workshops in coworking spaces (involving 29 creative hub experts). This paper suggests a new framework for understanding intercultural dialogue in creative hubs through their spatial and cultural attributes, as well as through their levels of activity.

Director of Creative Economy at Cardiff University, Sara Pepper, delivered a training programme for the British Council in Thailand focused on creative hubs. The three-day programme concentrated on building networks, growing communities and planning events as well as giving guidance on how to make engaging spaces and effective business models.

Read about the international training opportunity.

The Festival of Voice Cardiff – rebranded to Llais - is a biennial international performing arts festival – begun in 2016 - in Wales’ capital city that celebrates the voice in all its forms. Conceived and created by Wales Millennium Centre, it takes place within multiple prominent arts and theatre venues around Cardiff.

The creative economy team evaluated the 2018 festival, carrying out audience surveys and face to face bilingual interviews. This was combined with in-depth interviews with attendees (captured on video), a focus group, analysis of ticketing data and an online survey.

Find out more about Llais, formerly Festival of Voice, in Cardiff.

Addressing the lack of detailed analysis of Cardiff’s creative activity and current data on the shape, character and breadth of the creative economy in Cardiff. This research charted strengths and weaknesses, and developed firmly grounded strategies for supporting and developing the sector. There are four areas where Cardiff showed particular strengths (by which we mean comparative volume of activity rather than quality of output): Music, Performing & Visual Arts, Film, TV, Video, Radio & Photography, Design: Product, Graphic & Fashion and Crafts. In all four areas the proportions of both companies and freelancers are above the UK employment average.

A collaboration between Cardiff University’s Festivals Research Group, set up by the Centre for the Creative Economy, and Sŵn Music Festival. The activities included: those in the School of Music working on case studies on the performers’ journeys through Sŵn Festival and a qualitative analysis of the festival experience based on face-to-face interviews; a blended quantitative and qualitative research survey of festivalgoers produced by researchers in the Cardiff Business School and the School of Geography and Planning; and a Sŵn Music Museum, in one of Cardiff’s Victorian arcades, led by Dr Jacqui Mulville in the School of History, Archaeology and Religious Studies. The Music Museum connected with creatives working for Sŵn Festival and the group also successfully collaborated with StoryworksUK, who helped to capture music memories during the festival weekend.

Accessing Cardiff’s Hidden Creative Economy was a piece of research from Dr Samuel Woodford, funded by the AHRC Cultural Encounters Fund 2015.This research explores notions of working habits, aspirations, education and training opportunities held by the Cardiff region’s “embedded creatives” i.e. those people performing jobs defined by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as creative but working in organisations whose primary activities are not defined as creative by the DCMS.

The Creative Citizens research project helped shape our thinking about Creative Cardiff and the Centre for the Creative Economy.

It began life in a ‘sandpit’ event at Birmingham University in the autumn of 2010, exploring ideas relevant to the Connected Communities programme, then recently launched by the UK research funding councils.

Out of the sandpit came a project entitled Media, Community and the Creative Citizen, which asked the following research question: ‘how does creative citizenship generate value for communities within a changing media landscape; and how can this pursuit of value be intensified, propagated and sustained?’

Then Chair of Digital Economy at Cardiff University, Professor Ian Hargreaves, led a team from six universities: Cardiff University, University of Birmingham, Open University, Royal College of Art, Birmingham City University and Bristol UWE. Research sites were identified in London, Birmingham, Bristol and South Wales, shaped around three themes: community journalism, creative networks and community planning and design. We used a wide mix of research techniques; including surveys and interviews but with a particular focus upon co-created media ideas and ran countless events and interventions.

Lessons from the project

  • In the creative economy, collaboration is king. Collaboration and co-creation between researchers and partners outside the university is demanding but value-adding when you get it right. Agreement, shared purpose and mutual understanding are what given creatively generated citizenship moves their novelty, legitimacy and power.
  • Digital media are essential to effective community interventions, so learn and use them. But don’t be afraid to modify digital media to your own needs and tastes or to ditch them if that is what user feedback says.
  • Both universities and communities have a part to play. Universities are important in the creative economy because they are vast sources of knowledge, experience and energy. But communities also have knowledge which is also essential for successful research.

A survey was conducted to gain a clearer understanding of the creative economy-related work that takes place in Chapter Café Bar and examine how this might inform plans for future developments at Chapter. A week-long mapping exercise of the Chapter Café Bar was conducted to analyse the creative economy-related activity taking place there, and to better understand that environment and its users.

Find out more about Chapter Arts Centre.