The cultural industries: creative definitions, quantifications and practice

This submission is in five sections and includes my analysis of the New Labour Creative Industries Policy, including a discussion of definitional and data issues, followed by a summary of my contribution to the field through the cited public works and a conclusion. The body of knowledge represented in the selected studies and published works contributes to two major activities: vocational learning and the cultural and creative industries. On first reading, these seem incompatible; however, vocational learning is a key component of creative industries development and to understand the issues in vocational learning, an industrial context - in my case, the creative industries - is helpful. However, this submission relies on my works in the creative and cultural industries, with supplementary references to my public contribution in the vocational learning arena. The particular focus of the earlier published works surrounds a groundbreaking project, the Artist in Industry scheme. This scheme was the first of its kind in the United Kingdom, and took public funding of the arts into uncharted territory by connecting artists, companies and employees in a structured and organised manner. It is the interaction between the artist as worker in the workplace and employees in the company that made the scheme important and thus provides a logical starting point for this submission. Consequently, there are few references to my work before 1980. The overall contribution to professional practice in this submission can be summarised as breaking new ground in the relationship between the arts and industry, significantly influencing vocational education and training in the cultural field (particularly higher education) with a recognised contribution to a reappraisal of the creative industries' definitional frameworks, development of primary baseline methodology and provision of new data on the sector. This has required an understanding and critiquing of the concepts employed by government and related agencies, the suggestion of alternatives, and the development of work-based projects built around consultancy activities to test methodologies and provide new intelligence to inform practice