This global conference on policy for the creative economy takes place in locations across London that are home to world-leading creative enterprises and culture-led regeneration projects.

Creative Clusters 2007 takes place between Friday 9th and Wednesday 14th November, in locations across London that are home to world-leading creative enterprises and culture-led regeneration projects.

The fifth Creative Clusters Conference takes place at a turning point for the UK’s creative economy agenda. It is ten years since Chris Smith took over the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), set up the Creative Industries Task Force and commissioned the initial research into Britain’s creative industries. The DCMS Mapping Document that followed a year later introduced the phrase ‘creative industries’ to mainstream politics, and the term soon came to signify a set of policy concepts that were taken up across the world.

Now, with a change of Prime Minister in the UK triggering a mood of reassessment and renewal, stakeholders in the creative industries agenda are taking stock. The government’s Creative Economy green paper, due to be published shortly before Creative Clusters, will provide the fullest analysis yet of the creative sector’s importance to the UK economy, and to Britain’s international standing. It will propose a policy framework for the next ten years, that will feature strongly in the conference agenda.

But there is more to ‘taking stock’ than renewing the grand narrative. The great challenge for this sector is that our work must resonate on many levels. Policy initiatives, and their underlying rationale, must take into account the demands of individual creativity, the interests of local and regional culture, as well as the social and economic forces of globalisation.

Creative Clusters is firmly rooted in the practical and the local: we want to know how policy initiatives actually play out in the ground. The core of our programme is made up of case studies of ground-breaking and exemplary projects from around the world, that offer lessons for policy development. There will be a special emphasis on the local areas of London in which the conference is taking place, with study-tours to leading initiatives across London: the City Fringe, Brixton, Soho, Lewisham, the South Bank, Exhibition Road, Paddington, Hackney and more.

But a focus on London does not mean we are London-centric. Creative Clusters includes voices and projects from across the UK regions, and from across the world.

For our international visitors, there has never been a better time to visit London. The UK’s creative industries are booming, and London is being called the ‘world creative capital’. Yet the more we work with other countries and cultures, the more we find we have still to learn. We aim to make Creative Clusters a truly global forum, and we invite you to bring with you your own experiences and insights.

Registration required:

Yes

Free:

No