A State of the Nations Research Report
‘Will the creative exporters please stand up? Recent export trends and features of exporting creative micro, small and medium-sized enterprises’ continues our State of the Nations series, building on previous Internationalisation research. The key finding is that the share of creative industries firms who export increased by 10 percentage points over six years from 15% to 25%, whereas for other industries exporting stayed static at around 9%. Exporting firms are also shown to be more profitable and therefore policy interventions that grow the share of UK creative industries exporters could be an important way for the government to achieve its growth ambitions.
The report is written by Daniel Simandjuntak, Giorgio Fazio, Jonathan Jones and Sara Maioli (Newcastle University Business School) and is part of Creative PEC’s State of the Nations series.
Key findings:
- UKRI to consider how their remit connects to trade support opportunities rather than approaching R&D and innovation separately.
- Maximise the opportunity devolution presents for place-specific strategies and for devolved policy makers to coordinate activity between local creative MSMEs and UK-wide export support initiatives, such as those offered by UK Export Finance.
- Embed a combination of policies that target creative industries firms generally alongside policies that target individual creative specialisms, as the report finds not all challenges faced by creative MSMEs are sector specific, but some are.
- Boost mentorship programmes that build management capacity and exporting knowledge among creative MSMEs, as the report finds creative exporters tend to be younger and smaller than exporters in the rest of the economy and so require additional support with managerial and administrative planning.
- Improve the evidence base to understand barriers to finance, and especially whether new financial instruments might be developed to support creative exporters.
- Raise awareness of key export support programmes to further expand creative industries exports, as the report finds low awareness of key initiatives such as Global Export Facility among exporters.
- Stabilise international trade uncertainty through agreements and continue to set out clear public strategies such as the Sector Plan for the Creative Industries, as the report finds creative MSMEs are more likely to say that the current economic climate is a barrier more than other businesses in the economy.
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What are State of the Nations reports?
Creative PEC’s State of the Nations series analyses the latest data across four thematic areas to inform the development of policies relating to the creative industries. Their scope is the whole of the United Kingdom, and wherever possible data is presented for all the nations and regions. Regular reports on each area will be published biannually over the five years of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding. The themes and corresponding Research Consortium Partners are:
- R&D, Innovation and Clusters (University of Sussex)
- Internationalisation (Newcastle University)
- Arts, Culture and Heritage (University of Sheffield)
- Education, Skills and Talents (Work Advance)
This report is written by our consortium partners at Newcastle University:
- Dr Daniel Simandjuntak, Research Associate, Creative PEC and Newcastle University Business School
- Professor Giorgio Fazio, Research Director at Creative PEC and Chair of Macroeconomics at Newcastle University Business School
- Dr Jonathan Jones, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Creative PEC and Newcastle University Business School
- Dr Sara Maioli, Reader in Economics, Creative PEC and Newcastle University Business School
Thanks to Creative PEC policy, operations and communications teams for editing, proofing and other support.
Citation: If the information in this report is used in any subsequent research and/or publications, please cite as follows:
Simandjuntak, D., Fazio, G., Jones, J., Maioli, S. (2025) Will the creative exporters please stand up? Recent export trends and features of exporting creative micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. Creative PEC State of the Nations Research Series. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.17750369
Credits
Report design by Mike Green/Green Doe Ltd.
