Introducing the Creative PEC’s Research Fellows Network

By Professor Hasan Bakhshi, Director Creative PEC and Professor Giorgio Fazio, Director of Research Creative PEC

The Creative PEC’s mission is to grow the evidence base and inform policies to support the growth and sustainability of the creative industries. Our research must be dynamic to answer the needs of a fast-changing creative sector, varied given the heterogeneity of the sub-sectors and multidisciplinary reflecting the complexity of the challenges and opportunities they face.

We are pursuing this mission through a diverse and multi-faceted research portfolio. A research consortium made up of colleagues from Sussex University, Sheffield University, Work Advance as well as from our own institution, Newcastle University, will help provide us with regular quantitative data reporting in the form of our new State of the Nations series (see here for the first of these, on the Geographies of Creativity, which we published in December 2023). We will also publish research from our in-house Research Unit as well as commissioning and co-commissioning research from others.

We are also excited to introduce the first cohort of our new Creative PEC Research Fellows, where our ambition is to be nothing short of the global network of choice for those conducting excellent empirical research on the creative industries. Bringing to our audiences nationally and internationally the very best of research on the creative industries, wherever that takes place, we will grow the network to all parts of the world and, importantly, include researchers working in the private, public and third sectors as well as from academia. What binds them together will be the excellence of their research and their relevance to public policy for the creative industries.

As well as facilitating knowledge exchange through seminars, blogs and discussion papers and smaller thematic research networks, we hope over time the Research Fellows Network will be a catalyst for new international and national research initiatives.

In this first cohort, we have reached out to leading experts from diverse backgrounds, areas of specialism and parts of the globe. Some are alumni of the Creative PEC from its previous work. We are acutely aware of the need to reach out beyond our existing relationships, and the gaps in representation across geography, identity and thematic specialisms as we cross the starting line. In the coming years we intend to grow the Creative PEC’s Research Fellows Network to address these gaps strategically, to ensure a truly inclusive and diverse range of perspectives and expertise is supported, amplified and promoted through our research platforms. We have a particular desire to bring on board excellent early-career researchers across the world who are working at the frontiers of creative industries research.

Today’s launch of the Creative PEC’s Research Fellows Network is a major milestone for the Creative PEC. Coinciding with it we’re delighted to have announced the first four in our series of Creative PEC seminars, all four stellar speakers from our Research Fellows Network.

By Professor Hasan Bakhshi, Director Creative PEC and Professor Giorgio Fazio, Director of Research Creative PEC

Research Fellows Network

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