Opening presentation for the first continuity day of the AHRC-funded Cultural Intermediation in the Creative Urban Economy project

1. Overview of the project
and timelines
Phil Jones
School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham

2. What do we want to get from
project continuity days
• A sense of how the different elements of the
project fit together
• How the project needs to evolve from its
original conception
• Review of work we’ve undertaken and how we
could improve things
• Things that we’ve missed, potential avenues
to explore

3. Creating an unequal economy
• 30 years of deindustrialisation and transition
to a ‘creative’ economy
• Widening gap between rich and poor

4. Creative economy impacts
• DCMS 2007 40% of creative workers have
degrees compared to 25% non-creative
• Arts increasingly justified instrumentally as
generating economic growth
• Powerful influence of discourses such as
‘creative class’ reinforcing neoliberal urbanism
• Polarisation of connected, creative
communities and deprived service class

5. Connected Communities
Programme
• Runs across UK Research Councils, but led by
Arts and Humanities Research Council
• “to mobilise the potential for increasingly
inter-connected, culturally
diverse, communities to enhance
participation, prosperity, sustainability, health
and well-being by better connecting
research, stakeholders and communities.”

6. How the project came about
• Connected Communities ‘Creative Economy
Workshop’ December 2010
• Call for projects linking creative economy with
the idea of connected communities
• We won 6 months of funding to develop a
larger project bid
• Competition between five teams, three of
which were funded

7. • University of Manchester: Understanding
everyday participation and its role in creating
social and cultural value
• Cardiff University: Understanding the value of
the creative citizen
• University of Birmingham: Connecting
communities in the creative urban economy

8. The research problem we
identified
• If the ‘creative economy’ is significant, then
who is benefiting from it?
• How is the creative economy (broadly defined)
connected to different communities?
• What processes of ‘cultural intermediation’
operate to make these connections?

9. Creative vs. cultural
• Slippage between terms ‘creative’ and
‘cultural’ industries
– Tendency to subsume cultural within creative
industries
• ‘Cultural economy’ allows us to think wider
and think about contribution that
museums, galleries etc. can make
– More than simply direct economic output

10. What is ‘cultural
intermediation’?
• Bourdieu’s (1984): intermediaries as agents
who tell communities what cultural
phenomena to passively consume
• Broader notion of ‘intermediation’ as
processes linking cultural economy to the
wider world
– individual artists, public arts venues, creative
industries, agencies/networks supporting the arts,
etc. etc.

11. Intermediation as
connection
• Implicit assumption that connecting more people
to the creative economy will reduce inequality
• Cultural intermediation already exists
• But
– Is cultural intermediation the best way to make
connections?
– Does it function in the most effective fashion?
– Can modes of working be found that improve this
‘connecting’ role?

12. Overall aim
To identify means of enhancing the
effectiveness of cultural
intermediation as a mechanism for
connecting different communities
into the broader creative economy

13. Research Questions
• To develop techniques to capture the value of cultural
intermediation (WP1)
• To examine how cultural intermediation has developed
historically, whose interests it has served and what lessons
this provides for understanding best practice today. (WP2)
• To critically evaluate the role of intermediaries in the
changing governance of cultural economy initiatives and
how different actors undertaking cultural intermediation
operate within the sector (WP3)
• To explore how intermediation connects communities into
the creative economy and how this can be enhanced to
break down the tension between hard-to-reach
communities and inaccessible cultural resources. (WP4)

14. Research Questions
• To design and deliver practice-based interventions with
local stakeholder panels of academics, policy-
makers, community groups and artists to improve the
effectiveness of cultural intermediation. (WP5)
• To contribute to academic, policy and practitioner debates
on the value of cultural intermediation in shaping creative
economy initiatives (WP6)
• To reflexively examine and evaluate the process of
interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary working through
innovative project design and delivery (WP6)
• To produce high-quality academic, policy and artistic
outputs based on best practice in knowledge exchange
(WP0-6)

15. WP0 Scoping & Theory Building
Lead: Phil Jones
Additional Input: Research team
Mapping exercise WP1 Valuation & Mapping 1x PhD
Intellectual Property
Lead: Lisa De Propris Lead: Dave O’Brien Supervisor: Antonia Layard
RA: 6 months data processing Critical Friend: Andrew Dubber
Site Coordination
Manchester: Beth Perry
Birmingham: Phil Jones
WP2 Historic WP3 Governance WP4 Communities WP5 Interventions
Lead: Ian Grosvenor Lead: Beth Perry Lead: Paul Long Lead: Phil Jones
RF: Natasha McNabb RF: Site Researcher x2 Additional input Additional input
Critical Friend: Beth Perry Additional Input: Manchester case study: Paul Manchester case study: Paul
Antonia Layard Heywood Heywood
Critical Friend: Dave O’Brien RF: Site Researcher x 2 Additional input
Critical Friend: Phil Jones Birmingham case study:
Andrew Dubber
RF: Site researcher x 2
Critical Friend: Kerry Wilson
WP6 CIRCUS
1x PhD
Seminar Series Reflection Universities as New Media
Lead: Kerry Wilson Lead: Tim May Intermediaries Lead: Richard Clay
Supervisor: Tim May Technical input: Russell Beale
Critical Friend: Yvette Vaughan Jones RF: 1 x part time

16. Integrated
interdisciplinary design
• Arts & humanities approaches embedded in the
project framing
• Valuation mapping exercise identifies case study
themes...
• ...shaping the historical project which...
• ...informs examination of contemporary
governance which...
• ...identifies different communities who are asked
to co-construct the research...
• ...and commission creative interventions

17. Deep case study approach
• Allows the creative economy eco-system to be
explored in each city
• Topical
– Birmingham LEP/enterprise zone ‘creative city’
– Salford Media City
• How well do community needs/aspirations map
onto cultural policy and the activity of
intermediaries
– What are the circles of influence / cliques that exist.
How do these include / exclude groups?

18. Two case study teams
Greater Manchester Birmingham
• Coordinator: Beth Perry • Coordinator: Phil Jones
• 3 year research fellow • 3 year research fellow
• Working across • Working across
– Governance – Governance
– Communities – Communities
– Interventions – Interventions

19. Community-led research
• How visible is intermediation activity within
communities (‘hard-to-reach institutions’)?
• Training for community members to
undertake research themselves
• De-centre the power of intermediation to
have communities determining priorities for
action
• Community membership of local panels
commissioning £140k of intervention activity

20. CIRCUS
• Collaborative Interdisciplinary Research
Connecting Urban Society
• Seminar series, interfacing with KE hubs
• Major public activities with Library of
Birmingham, BMAG, Manchester International
Festival and others
• Museum-grade multiplatform outputs
• Ongoing reflexive study of the research
practice
• Dissemination of best practice

21. Non academic partners
Visiting Arts, Arts Council England, Unity
Radio, Sampad South Asian Arts, MADE, Un-
Convention, DCMS, Birmingham City Council, Mitra
Memarzia, a-n The Artists Information
Company, Brighter Sound, The Seedley and
Langworthy Trust, Institute of Contemporary
Arts, RSA, Manchester City Council, Manchester
International Festival, Birmingham and North
Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust, City of
Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Grand Central

22. Scoping studies
• We have a budget for commissioning 12
review papers
• Interdisciplinary vs. International
• Potential value of reviewing state of cultural
economy and intermediation practices in BRIC
countries

23. Scale of the project
• 4 years
• £1.5m, but...
– Salaries & overheads £1.1m
– PhD studentships £80k
– Travel / subsistence £21k
– Equipment £4k
– Commissions £140k
– Seminar series £20k
– Transcription £20k
– Etc. Etc.

24. Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4
WP0 Scoping & Theory Building
WP2 Historic
WP3 Governance WP4 Communities WP5 Interventions
WP1 Valuation & Mapping

25. Management Committee
Phil Jones (PI/WP5)
Steering Group Dave O’Brien (WP1) Virtual panel
Mitra Memarzia (AIR) Susan Jones (AN)
Clayton Shaw (Sampad) Ian Grosvenor (WP2) Rachel Smithies (ACE)
Chris Jam (Unity FM) Beth Perry (WP3) Ed Pickering(DCMS)
Yvette Vaughan Jones (Visiting Arts) Paul Long (WP4) Paul Collard (Creative Partnerships)
Manchester International Festival Paul Benneworth (Uni of Twente)
Brighter Sound Tim May (WP6)
Manchester City Council
The Community Development Trust
Ruth Daniel (Un-Convention)
Anthony Ruck (MADE)
Tony Whyton (Uni of Salford)
Kate Mcluskie (Uni of Birmingham)
Cross cutting team
Phil Jones (coordinator)
Dave O’Brien
Birmingham Team Lisa de Propis
Richard Clay
Manchester Team
Phil Jones (coordinator) Ian Grosvenor Beth Perry (coordinator)
Site Researcher RF 1 Natasha McNabb Site Researcher RF2
Andrew Dubber Yvette Vaughan Jones Paul Heywood
Paul Long Antonia Layard
Tim May
Kerry Wilson
Birmingham Local Panel Manchester Local Panel
Commissioning interventions. Commissioning interventions.
Composition to emerge from Composition to emerge from
activities in WP3 & WP4 activities in WP3 & WP4

26. Summary

27. • Intermediation is a key process in the creative
economy but has lacked critical scrutiny
• Project takes an interdisciplinary, deep case
approach to analyse the sector in an
integrated fashion
• Creative, action-oriented approach driven by
communities
• Context of localism, big society and (big) cuts
make reappraisal urgent
• Opportunities for major impact through
rigorous outputs and dissemination strategy