Supporting creative practitioners and creativity as practice – Creative Manchester at The University of Manchester

Creative Manchester proudly takes on the role of a Premium Sponsor for the upcoming pro-manchester Creative Conference 2023, where Manchester’s creative experts will join forces to share insights with the wider business community. This sponsorship underscores Creative Manchester’s commitment to fostering interdisciplinary research communities and facilitating the transition of skilled graduates into the creative and cultural sector.

Forming part of the Universities four research platforms Creative Manchester convenes, develops and sustains interdisciplinary research communities across The University of Manchester and Greater Manchester while raising awareness of creativity as a practice. We support aspiring graduates through Graduate Internships and student placements, effectively bridging academia and industry.

University of Manchester’s newly appointed Professor and Chair of Cultural and Creative Industries, Dave O’Brien, will contribute to the conference as part of the panel ‘Skills Issues & Challenges within the Creative, Digital & Media Sector; data-driven recruitment’. Professor O’Brien’s research delves into the prevalent challenges of inequality within the creative sector and highlights the urgency of transforming hiring practices and organizational cultures to foster diversity and inclusion.

Speaking about the relevance of pro-manchester’s Creative Conference and his involvement on the panel, Professor O’Brien says that “a crucial problem for the creative industries is how to attract and retain more diverse talent. As it stands, it’s posh white men, who are dominating leadership and other key roles. Even when we have recent examples of individual women, people of colour, and those from working class backgrounds making it to the top, these represent a break from the usual pattern of career success. This starting point – of high levels of inequality, evidenced by high quality labour market data – gives creative businesses the chance to be much more effective as they approach ‘what works’ to change their hiring, commissioning, and organisational cultures.”

Professor O’Brien is a co-investigator on the second phase of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (AHRC PEC), as well as currently working on projects about creative labour markets, class and television, and valuing culture and heritage.

He has published extensively on inequality in the creative economy, including his latest book ‘Culture is Bad for You’, which is co-authored by Dr Mark Taylor and Dr Orian Brook, and the ‘Creative Majority’ report on how to support diversity in the creative industries, published by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Creative Diversity. The follow up to this research, focused on creative education, will be published in October 2023.

Looking forward, Creative Manchester is proud to support the introduction of four pioneering Master’s programmes set to launch in September 2023. These programmes — MA Creative and Cultural Industries, MA Digital Media, Culture and Society, MA Library and Archive Studies, and MMus Performance — echo the University’s and region’s dedication to developing skilled graduates and supporting the creative and cultural industries in Greater Manchester and the North West.