The creative industries and industrial policy: the UK case

This chapter defines four key reasons why creative industries in the UK have come to be embraced at the highest policy level as a legitimate industrial sector. These institutional factors for the growing recognition of the UK’s creative industries are the product of years of dedicated research directed toward policy agendas and impact. First, the creative industries are accepted by government as playing an integral role in the digitisation of the economy and vice versa. Second, policy-focused research has become much better at measuring the economic contributions of the creative industries, including understanding the significance of digital technology within it. Third, the UK Government has placed R&D at centre stage of its industrial strategy, and there has been initial success in making the case for public investment in creative industries R&D. Fourth, the sector has organised effectively to represent its interests to government, with influential sector-wide bodies like the Creative Industries Council and, more recently, the Creative Industries Federation.