Dick is a former Director of Watershed and currently a member of the West of England LEP. He has served as Executive Chair of Bristol Old Vic and helped to found several collaborative development initiatives. Dick has been a mentor and guide to Creative Cardiff from the beginning. His advice, experience, questioning/probing and encouragement has been invaluable.
He writes:
Creative industries are rightly much heralded and promoted for strengths and potentials from economic growth to community building.
The increasing consensus that the creative sector is vital for a prosperous and healthy society is welcome, but the mechanics by which creative industries can be successfully helped to flourish is less well understood.
Often the dynamics of the people and companies who make up the creative industries do not conform to the established processes of ‘industrial’ development which underpin the decision making of government, bankers and investors. The agile, shape shifting, project focussed nature of many creative organisations does not fit with standard investment programmes and this is compounded by the very high proportion of micro companies and freelance talent. Often it just looks too complex to the outsider and there are more obvious concerns in the decay of more conventional industries.
Clusters are an established industrial phenomenon but are only recently coming to prominence in creative industries development strategies. Here too there is the barrier of complexity as creative clusters have distinct dimensions and characteristics, with flow of ideas and inspiration superseding more conventional materials supply chains. The 2017 UK Government Review of creative industries led by Sir Peter Bazalgette put clusters front and centre of development strategy with a recognition that creative clusters are unusually place specific. This review led to the Industrial Strategy Creative Industries Sector Deal. AHRC championed cluster investment as a key action with the result that AHRC have created the Creative Industries Clusters Programme and Clwstwr is one of the funded clusters.
All well and good but this short narrative omits the fundamental role of Creative Cardiff in bringing together the place-based consortium which led to the successful Clwstwr bid. The connectivity of the cluster captures and projects both capacity and capability which builds a sense of scale and leads to increased confidence, profile and competitive position. Without the agency of network co-ordination, it is almost impossible for creative clusters to become visible and attract the diverse talent and investment so vital to sustainable growth and inclusion.
The vision and commitment to establish Creative Cardiff five years ago has already demonstrated the potential and diversity of Welsh creative industries when the approach is more eco-system than industry - now the challenge is to sustain the role of cluster support and network co-ordination over the long term to embed localised mutuality, raise the bar for all, and develop both home and international markets.
