Katy Shaw shares the highlights of the AHRC Creative Communities programme and the lessons for a mission led Labour government
By proposing a cut-across approach that draws together different sectors, government departments and communities as well as regions and nations, Labour are proposing a radical equalising of expertise and sharing of responsibility for forging a future Britain.
This approach to delivery is one that our AHRC Creative Communities programme has been testing through culture-led R&D for the last two years. Creative Communities is a five year programme that leads a strategic suite of cross sector co-created cultural and creative industry innovation partnerships, aimed at achieving growth, and reforming social and economic policy in the 4 devolved contexts of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and the Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) in England.
What is a creative community?
As a signature £3m AHRC investment, Creative Communities is part of a wider UKRI-led strategy for national renewal that is focussed on realigning power in places across the devolved regions and nations of the UK.
Hosted by Northumbria University, the programme is based in the devolved context of the North East Mayoral Combined Authority which covers an area the size of Wales from the Scottish border to the boundary with Teesside. The programme is working from a devolved context to develop a new evidence base on how and why culture can be used to address regional inequality, support devolution, enable belonging and break down barriers to opportunity in culture and R&D across all four nations.
As a mission model of delivery, the programme underpins Labour’s approach and grows a sustainable, resilient and inclusive business model for culture and creative industries R&D in the UK. By working together, a creative community delivers growth, productivity & inclusive innovation and makes research and culture something that can happen anywhere by anyone.
Transforming tomorrow together
Our national report has created a new live evidence base of co-creation innovations across the UK and identified what works when it comes to devolving culture spend and strategy to a local level.
Our five community innovation practitioners (CIPs) are working with devolved funding awards in all four nations to enable the creation of new culture as an essential part for developing creativity and helping communities to find their voice and foster a sense of belonging. Rather than pen journal articles or monographs, our CIPs have instead collaborated to produce a five part podcast series (dropping Autumn 2024) that features the voices of the people involved in their cultural R&D, as well as case studies and policy papers to share their learning about what works for mission-delivery in culture with decision makers from their devolved contexts.
Our policy co-labs are empowering local communities to develop the skills people need to create and engage with culture and cross-sector opportunities in devolved contexts. Our open access toolkit is being co-developed with stakeholders to improve access to culture for everyone and to create an inclusive innovation system through R&D that is by all, for all. Collaboration is key. In a time when we are all being asked to do more with less, we can avoid double doing and gaps forming by better coordinating and sharing expertise, resources and networks. But this works best when it’s included from inception. We need to bake in collaboration as default in government, R&D, public and private sector activities to maximise agglomeration benefits, cluster growth strengths to unlock innovation opportunities.
Together, our national report, CIPs and policy labs evidence the investment leveraged and networks and resources mobilised when you devolve funding to a local level and incentivise cross-sector engagement in its co-design, co-delivery and co-evaluation from inception. This learning will be vital for devolved nations and regions seeking to unleash growth and use devolved culture and R&D powers to maximise benefits for their people and places.
The aim to drive inclusive local growth can only be met if the government creates the capacity for us to build better places, not just more places. This means mixed model funding mandates to ensure multiple partners inside and outside of government have skin in the game now and in the future.
Innovation nation
The current moment offers a rare window of opportunity for culture, devolution and growth to come together and create real change in places and spaces across the UK. Creative Communities is building an evidence base for two of Labour’s key missions: breaking down barriers to opportunity and kick starting economic growth. Culture is a key devolved power of the new MCAs in England and the devolved nations. It will constitute a core element of the new Local Growth Plans and is a portfolio area that can supercharge delivery of felt benefits and lived experience of devolution much faster than housing, transport or skills.
The new government has a commitment to devolve further in both culture and R&D in agreements with the devolved nations and in new trailblazer ‘tier four’ agreements with English MCAs. A joined up approach to the pivotal role of culture in place-making should be central to thinking in the new local growth plans. From new towns and housing developments, to high street overhauls and community ownership, by investing strategically in culture as part of these developments, Labour can ensure equitable access for everyone to participate in and create culture in devolved. We know that a creative industries strategy will be core in all local growth plans so this is a good time to start thinking about mapping our cultural assets and identifying hot spots for growth.
To date, the Creative Communities missions model of delivery for culture-led R&D has proved it can create growth by mobilising cross sector cocreation in devolved contexts to leverage inward investment. Our published evidence to date shows that devolving culture and R&D spend is a quick way to break down barriers to opportunity, improve access to skills and achieve inclusive growth in devolved fiscal and policy contexts. But there is still work to do – and that’s why we will be announcing new funding opportunities for our devolved regions and nations in the autumn so we can extend the benefits and share this model of delivery for culture-led growth across the UK, supercharged by a new ‘devolution by default’ approach in central government.
The Creative Communities programme is generating enhanced capacity and transformational impact in devolution through culture-led R&D in a town near you. Check out the Creative Communities website and find out more about how our focus on inclusive innovation is making sure that everyone has the opportunity to create, to innovate and to help co-create a new innovation nation.
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