A ukadia-supported report launched today highlights the crucial role higher education plays in boosting the UK creative economy – an industry that is worth almost £60bn to the economy – and demonstrates why sustaining that contribution with continued investment, will become increasingly important to economic recovery.

The report, ‘Creating Prosperity: the role of higher education in driving the UK’s creative economy’, finds that:

Higher education institutions, including small and specialist institutions

· have a central role to play in developing the talent and skills that drive the creative industries
· are increasingly creating opportunities for hands-on experience in industry as a way of enhancing students’ employability and delivering benefits to business
· are actively engaged in supporting activities to encourage and enable more graduate start-ups
· have set up innovation hubs contributing to regional development
 
Professor Stuart Bartholomew, Principal of the Arts University College at Bournemouth and Chair of ukadia, said:
"The creative industries are not at the margins of the national economy, they are at its heart. The specialist institutions of art and design have made the strongest contribution to this outcome by producing creative graduates who, in turn, will secure our creative future."

For more information please contact

Andy Westwood
GuildHE CEO and Secretary to ukadia
020 7387 7711
andy.westwood@guildhe.ac.uk

Notes to editors

1. The report, Creating Prosperity: the role of higher education in driving the UK’s creative economy, is being launched at the University of the Arts, London on Wednesday 1 December, 6.30pm – 8.30pm. Speakers include James Caan, business entrepreneur and star of Dragon’s Den, John Bird, founder of the Big Issue, and Professor Geoffrey Crossick, Vice-Chancellor of the University of London.

2. ukadia is the United Kingdom Arts and Design Institutions Association, a group of specialist arts and design institutions from across the UK’s higher and further education sectors. Its aims are to
    -promote, nationally and internationally, the key contributions of specialist colleges to the UK’s world-renowned reputation in visual arts, performance and the creative and cultural industries
    – work together as a network to widen participation in Higher Education and encourage mobility into professions serving the creative and cultural industries.

3. ukadia is a sub-association of GuildHE, a recognised representative body in the higher education sector. GuildHE members’ institutions offer their students a wide range of opportunities in specialist and professional practices. For a list of GuildHE members, please visit https://www.guildhe.ac.uk/en/members-list/
 

ukadia

Woburn House
20 Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9HB
Tel: 020 3393 6132
Charity Number: 1012218

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