Rethinking Policy for the Creative Economy: an ekip Open Innovation Factory

The Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) are at the forefront of technological innovation, often turning speculative ideas into transformative tools. To harness this potential, ekip’s Open Innovation Factories foster industry awareness of new methods for collaboration, ideation, and development developed through ekip’s original research and policy initiatives. By bringing together creatives, technologists, and policymakers, Open Innovation Factories empower participants to shape vibrant, inclusive futures for the CCIs across Europe and beyond.

In June 2025, we explored how policymakers can make the process of devising policy for the creative industries more accessible for creative practitioners. We also looked at how policy can be usefully applied in creative practitioners’ day-to-day work. With a rich interactive workshop following a panel of experts bridging policy and creative practice, this Innovation Factory supported participants to understand how they can get more involved in crafting and responding to policy for the creative industries to make a more effective innovation landscape for everyone.

PANEL: PUTTING INNOVATION POLICY TO WORK FOR THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

Chaired by Suzanne Black of the CoSTAR network, our panel consisted of Jorma Sarv, (Creativity Lab, Estonia), Bernard Hay (Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), UK), Izabela Derda (Erasmus University, Netherlands) and Francesca Barisani (European Institute of Innovation and  Technology (EIT) Culture & Creativity, EU-wide.)

Challenges with definitions of innovation which can seem alienating to creative industries practitioners, or limited to technological innovation was one of the first points raised by panellists. The discussion highlighted a need for a broader understanding of innovation as it emerges from different sectors and contexts. Francesca Barisani emphasized, “The concept of innovation is different, depending on what cultural activity you are doing,” highlighting that each sub-sector approaches innovation uniquely.

The panel agreed that a basis of shared understanding is particularly important for drafting effective policies that work for everyone: stakeholders from within the communities being served (in this case the creative industries) need to be involved up front in devising research agendas for policymaking. Bernard Hay described the consultative process used by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre in the UK that aims to support understanding and collaboration between policymaking and creative practice.

Equally, for researchers working to address policy needs, building strong relationships with policymakers is crucial for driving impact. The panel highlighted how such collaborations allow for more tailored, responsive policy interventions. Jorma Sarv focused on the necessity for policymakers to make policy applicable: “A good policy design comes with instruction. How to make this translation [into the day-to-day work of the creative industries] happen.” He describes achieving this translation of policymakers’ contexts and language into that of the sector, when it works well, as “like poetry.”

The panel stressed the importance of devising impact evaluation strategies for policies which factor in long-term impact assessments and qualitative over purely quantitative measures and data. There was a consensus that effective innovation requires more than just “quantity over quality,” as Francesca Barisani mentioned, stressing the shift from pure numerical impact to meaningful, qualitative changes. Francesca also criticised short-term funding models for not aligning with the time frames required for substantial long-term innovation, particularly in the creative industries.

While collaboration is essential for innovation, the fear of sharing intellectual property can hinder it. Bernard Hay noted the reliance on “secrecy and complexity of products and services” as common protection measures for the creative industries, far more commonly than in other industries. Izabela Derda also pointed out, “Collaborating is messy. It’s time-consuming,” illustrating how logistical challenges can complicate effective collaboration and innovation.  In addition, the panel noted that cross-collaborative and interdisciplinary projects, that span multiple funders’ remits and policy areas, may struggle to find a ‘home’ in innovation funding or within any one funder’s calls for projects.

WORKSHOP: CRITICALLY ASSESSING POLICY

In the second half of the event, participants engaged in an interactive online workshop designed to build critical thinking skills around assessing policy documents and responding to calls for evidence from policymakers. Using real UK and EU innovation policies related to the creative industries, in small groups participants read and discussed excerpts from policy and devised responses to improve the policies. The specific policies included:

• The EU’s Culture & Creativity Regulatory Framework
• The EU’s Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2025-2027 Analysis: Social, Institutional and Democratic Dimensions
• The EU’s Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2025-2027 Gap Analysis for Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Society
• The UK’s Invest 2035: The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy green paper: cultural and creative industries section

Across each group, some commonalities emerged:

• Asymmetry between the creative industries and cultural sector being expected to adopt digital skills in policy language, without digital sectors being expected to adopt creative or humanistic skills (across both EU and UK policy documents.) This seems to reflect underlying ideologies about the relative value of each sector.
• A lack of recognition in the language of these policy documents about innovation arising from within the creative industries (eg. innovative business models, working practices, novel skills, social impacts, environmental impacts, etc.) rather than the adoption of new technologies being innovative.
• Lack of awareness that many creative practitioners work across multiple different industries through blended and portfolio careers; a need for policymaking that takes a more holistic view of the sector among the wider mosaic of other sectors in the economy.
• A focus on ‘growth’ perhaps at the exclusion of or even in direct contravention to sustainability and green priorities.

Respondents had several questions to pose to policymakers:

• How can we leverage the power of the creative industries, and public policy, to address the environmental and social costs of rapid technological growth, rather than seeing American ‘Big Tech’ dominance in these areas as uncritically worth emulating?
• Why are we not required to talk about social value and cultural value in policy? Discussing wider definitions of value and impact of the sector makes policy more accessible to a bigger audience.
• What could other sectors beyond the CCIs be learning from the resilience inherent in traditional craft and cultural heritage sectors?
• How can we devise mechanisms to make the link between big funding pots and small businesses easier for both sides (consortia of small businesses bidding together, etc?)
• How do we make the CCIs a part of what gets people elected? (And thus a priority in policy making and funding decisions.)

A full analysis of this workshop and our findings from other policy translation exercises will be published as part of ekip’s ongoing policy engine work.

PUTTING INTO ACTION: A POLICY CONTRIBUTION GUIDE

To enable participants to continue practicing their policy consultation skills, we have provided a free, open-access guide with a step-by-step process on how to get started with contributing to calls for evidence. The guide walks creative practitioners through the typical steps involved with finding and responding to calls for evidence in policymaking. It exploresthe practicalities of making submissions and broader contextual questions about how to leverage the opportunity of a call for evidence in building coalitions of stakeholders and in establishing a robust reputation as a valuable thought leader in the area of the call:

Osborne, N., & McDonald, C. (2025). Responding to Policy Consultations: An ekip How-To Guide. ekip. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15592302

A full how-to guide for running these Open Innovation Factory workshop activities and our Inclusivity in Games toolkit will be published in the ekip Knowledge Bank, and the video of the panel can be viewed here.