The University of Manchester hosted a Creative Industries Day on 30th September 2015 at The Landing in Media City, Salford. The focus was on collaborative projects and facilitating future partnerships with an exploration of how academia can support innovation in the creative and digital community. The audience, comprising of regional SMEs from the creative and digital sector, heard from a range of speakers including Neil MCArthur of Talk Talk who gave an overview of the digital scene in Greater Manchester; Matt Brown, Lead Technologist, Creative Industries at Innovate UK who spoke about the public funding opportunities in the creative sector and Luke Georghiou, Vice President for Research and Innovation at the University of Manchester who moderated the panel debate.
“The University works with business to engage in an exchange of knowledge, ideas and people to contribute to economic life, and more broadly to national culture and prosperity.” said Professor Georghiou. “The creative economy is one of the UK’s fastest growing sectors and Manchester is a city with a thriving ecosystem well-positioned to support the creative and digital industries. We want to work with SMEs on joint identified and mutually beneficial areas where research can make a real impact on business innovation.”
Breakout sessions during the conference heard from Caroline Jay and representatives from the BBC who gave a case study overview on how the University and Corporation have formed alliances in areas such as TV data research. Katie Gallagher from Manchester Digital outlined the skills requirements for the creative sector and Lee Frater of Growth Hub described how to harness the power of digital.
The afternoon sessions presented an overview of BBC Connected Studio with Laura Harrison and Robin Cramp explaining the BBC Taster programme. Abi Gilmore, Senior Lecturer in Arts Management at the University of Manchester and John Knell of Intelligence Agency described how the Arts could benefit from greater use of audience data. Vikas Shah, Chair of Future Everything gave the closing keynote speech on creativity and innovation through the ages. Andrew James, Assistant Associate Dean for Business Engagement at the University gave the closing remarks and urged visitors to visit the research showcase stands. The interactive exhibits displayed some of the University teams’ ground-breaking work on music, data, video and graphene-based applications.
About the University of Manchester Business Engagement Team
The Business Engagement Support Team at the University of Manchester helps organisations harness the innovations and research power of the University. Services range from knowledge exchange to talent recruitment, from CPD training to commercialisation and are offered to a range of organisations, from international blue chip, small and medium size enterprises SME to charities, not for profits and social enterprises.
For further information visit http://www.manchester.ac.uk/collaborate/business-engagement/