Staying ahead: the economic performance of the UK’s creative industries

Institution: The Work Foundation

Summary of key findings

The Work Foundation was commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in late 2006 to undertake an analysis of the nature of the creative industries – their size, the factors that have shaped their comparative success in recent years, and the challenges which they face in the years ahead in anticipation of a Green Paper.

The resulting paper, “Staying ahead: the economic performance of the UK’s creative industries”, is a significant contribution to the debate about the importance of the Creative Economy in the UK. How the country approaches grants to one education and how the creative industries urgently broaden of investment… their diversity will be two great drivers of change.

Societies that are tolerant, self-confident, diverse and articulate are the hand-maidens of such creativity. Thus are the creative economy and creative society indissolubly linked. The more creative and vigorous the core of our national creativity, the more creative and vigorous are likely to be the creative industries and the wider economy and society.

Research questions & methodology

A draft of this report was presented at eleven industry summits, organised by the DCMS and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and which ran from January to April in 2007. Feedback shaped the final report along with a peer review group.

This paper includes a series of industry portraits.

Go to the journal article.