Join us for an update to the Creative Trident model of creative employment that incorporates creative qualifications, revealing the extent to which they are employed in the Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs) and in the general labour market.
- Thursday 9 October 2025
- 9.30am London / 6.30pm AEST
- Microsoft Teams
CCI research has struggled in recent years with methodological questions about how to incorporate creative qualifications, while some critics have used ideological and lifestyle arguments to question the coherence of grouping ‘cultural production’ and ‘creative services’ activities as the CCIs. The Creative Trident III approach presented here, and modelled with Australian data, addresses the methodological shortcomings of demand-based models of coding creative qualifications in a manner that can respond to current concerns about the labour market value of creative and liberal arts education. A major finding shows the coherence of the CCIs model at the level of qualifications – the only level at which the commonality of shared skills can be meaningfully addressed.
This 1-hour talk is part of Creative PEC‘s seminar series.
Agenda
- A review of the 25-year history of trying to fit the square peg of high growth creative applications of information and communications technology into the round hole of traditional arts and cultural production
- Presentation of the main findings of the research into Creative Trident III
- The implications of our method and findings for research and debate on creative and liberal arts education
- Q&A
Speakers
Stuart Cunningham
Distinguished Emeritus Professor
Queensland University of Technology
Stuart Cunningham is Distinguished Emeritus Professor, Queensland University of Technology and Professor, University of Canberra. He is a leading researcher and advocate for the development of creative industries policies. He directed the first Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence based outside the hard sciences (‘Creative Industries and Innovation’) from 2005 to 2014 and advised Australian governments and agencies in communications and arts portfolios. He worked closely with organisations such as NESTA and is a Research Fellow of the Creative Policy and Evidence Centre.
Marion McCutcheon
Senior Research Fellow
University of Canberra
Marion McCutcheon is a communications economist and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre, with extensive experience as a policy researcher and academic. Her interests include the media industries and the creative economy, and how society benefits from investing in culture. Recent work includes books co-authored with Sue Turnbull from the University of Wollongong, Transnational TV Crime: From Scandinavia to the Outback, and with the Queensland University of Technology’s Anna Potter, Australian Cultural Policy Unravelled: The Digital Demise of National Television Drama.
Scott Brook
Associate Professor of Communication
RMIT University
Scott Brook is Associate Professor of Communication in the School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a cultural policy and Creative and Cultural Industries researcher, with a focus on creative labour, cultural vocations, and labour market outcomes for creative graduates. He is the co- author with Comunian et al of Gender and the Creative Labour Market: graduates from Australia and the UK (Palgrave MacMillan 2022).
