Dementia connect: Co-designing a creative economy healthcare hub creative vouchers scheme evaluation report

This report is an evaluation of the creative voucher scheme used in the Dementia Connect (DC) project. DC was an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Follow-on Funding project which drew on core learning and collective expertise from the AHRC’s ‘Knowledge Exchange Hubs’ for the Creative Economy (2012 – 2016). The project was designed to spur health innovation – broadly defined - in the Dementia care sector through collaboration and engagement with the creative and cultural economy (CCE) – specifically the growing field of ‘Arts and Healthcare’ (AAH). The DC project mainly drew on its creative voucher scheme (CVS) as the primary tool of engagement. While the CVS is a funding scheme, there are a number of components and complementarities within the voucher scheme delivery system which allows it to be an effective and adaptable instrument of engagement in this type of cross-disciplinary setting. The type of method used to evaluate the DC CVS is openended interviews with collaborators - using thematic analysis to connect learning from four out of the six voucher collaborations. Cross sectional themes were drawn upon to evaluate the effectiveness of the CVS in the context of the DC project. The parameters that make up the evaluation of the CVS include two areas. First, interviews examined the extent to which the process of ‘co-creation’ and ‘knowledge exchange’ happened within the collaborations; secondly, particularities of external brokerage provided by the DC team were examined. These two themes were the most prevalent emerging from the interviews. The findings show that internally (i.e. within the collaborations): (1) cross-sectoral and organisational familiarity, where previous experience in these areas, were beneficial with dealing with challenges associated to time constraints but might do so at the expense of cross-sectoral learning; (2) partnerships that were new were more easily disrupted by logistical challenges as well as managing partner expectations; (3) funding amount unlocked more in-kind support but needed to be managed by project leads to ensure selfexploitation does not occur; (4) funding amount allowed for more exploration due to a lack of interim reporting; (5) funding amount acted as a stimulus to projects which may have never been funded due to constraints of large amounts of funding. Externally: (1) Managing and testing of new partnerships translated into a need for more brokerage in order to facilitate new partnerships; (2) new levels of brokerage bordering on a new role of bricoleur / bricolage which takes place at the pre-application stage is necessary when in new cross-sectoral contexts; (3) the importance of previous experience of venues delivering cross-disciplinary events which are vital to the delivery of the CVS is critical. In this particular case the voucher scheme seemed to do four important things: unlocked in-kind support, supported exploratory research, catalysed new areas of research, and led to strong partnerships

Business resilience and visual art: New directions for research in business- oriented practice for visual artists

Surprisingly, relatively few studies exist that ask what resilience looks like for freelancers and this is especially true for visual artists; who are the main focus of this study. This research asks what factors increase business resilience for visual arts freelancers. Specifically this research tests eleven hypotheses in order to answer the primary research question. It draws on survey data taken from 325 visual artists in London. The survey asks questions specifically about business practice which are the variables associated with measuring resilience in this work

Cultural districts and innovation: A focus on the global south

This report explores how cultural districts in the Global South are either innovating or creating the conditions to meet the needs of new and existing challenges – either brought about or amplified by the pandemic. Here, innovation is understood as the capacity to enable cultural district ecosystems to flourish so that new or improved ideas may continue to be nurtured and developed in order to create new market demand or solutions to economic, social and environmental challenges. Consequently, the innovations here are not linear but as adaptive as organisations within cultural districts are, exemplifying the agility and adaptability prevalent in the cultural economy of which cultural districts are a part. This is evidenced by how, despite gaining momentum in many countries of the Global South, many cultural districts do not have formal governance structures, and in fact usually sit under or work within the remit of multiple authorities and stakeholders. However, their socio-economic and cultural benefits to cities are without question

Investigating London’s creative economy: A word on research methods

This paper is about the research methods used by Creativeworks London’s Place Work Knowledge (PWK) research strand in developing a number of case studies investigating the creative economy in parts of London. The PWK research strand focuses on some of the processes that drive and sustain London’s creative and cultural economy with a focus on the places, spaces and practice of this activity. It adopted an ethnographic approach in order to develop a deeper understanding of what is seen as a number of creative ‘Communities of Practice’ in various parts of primarily east London. This paper is a reflection of the strengths and weaknesses of the research methods used.Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant Number AH/J005142/1]

From catastrophe to hybridity to recovery? Unpacking the implications of a sector in transition as a result of COVID-19: A focus on South West England’s creative and cultural sector

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on the creative and cultural sector in South West England. This is the first comprehensive piece of work looking at the impact on the region but also asking questions about medium and long term transition and resilience as part of the sector’s recovery. The South West region consists of the counties of: Bristol, Cornwall, Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Wiltshire. The findings indicate that supporting a transition to hybridity (a combination of digital and non-digital means) specifically hybridised production models, income models and organisational models can play an important role in supporting a resilient transition and subsequent path to recovery for the South West Creative and Cultural Sector (CCS)

Creative hubs: Understanding the new economy

A dynamic ecosystem of creative spaces and communities has developed over the last 10 years. This report has been commissioned to better understand their diverse value, processes and motivations and in doing so, analyse how best to support and stimulate the wider creative economy they are rooted in

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Social inclusion and SMEs: The case of creative SMEs in Hackney Wick and Fish Island, London

Creative cluster urban policy, aimed at regenerating parts of cities in the UK, has been linked with ameliorating social exclusion in the extant policy literature. This is paradoxical given levels of exclusion within the creative and cultural industries in the UK. Moreover, this type of policy favours more publicly funded creative and cultural organisations as opposed to creativesmall and medium-sized enterprises including micro-organisations (SMEs) - those who primarily trade, and who make up the bulk of the sector. This is because creative SMEs have unique labour, organisational and economic realities which might limit their levels of social inclusion practice (SIP). Moreover, what SIP looks like for such an assorted array of organisational and sub-sectoral businesses, and how this benefits them, has not been accurately presented in the literature. If creative cluster policy is to deliver social inclusion (broadly defined) then it must contend with the business realities which exist for creative SMEs. This paper draws on research conducted in the established creative cluster of Hackney Wick and Fish Island (HWFI) in London. Using an operational definition for SIP derived from the policy literature as well as descriptive and nonparametric correlation analysis of survey data, this paper investigates three questions. First, does SIP by creative SMEs lead to business growth? Second, does SIP by creative SMEs lead to business longevity? Third, what are the implications for creative clusters? By addressing these three questions this paper aims to shed light on the costs and benefits of SIP for specifically creative SMEs and how this affects the clusters within which they are nested. While data limitations exist, findings suggest that short term, immediate rewards identified as business growth, and analysed through annual turnover, are not imminent for creative SMEs that pursue SIP. However, longer term benefits, analysed as business longevity or how long these businesses stay in operation, are apparent for those creative SMEs that do pursue SIP. This indicates a positive impact for creative clusters regarding ameliorating social exclusion but could be markedly improved if policy provides appropriate incentive structures for specifically creative SMEs who pursue or plan to pursue SIP

Mechanisms of collaboration between creative small, medium and micro-sized enterprises and higher education institutions: reflections on the Creativeworks London Creative Voucher Scheme

According to the literature, university-industry collaborations are far from straightforward. Thispaper adds to this work by looking at how the process of collaboration has fared between highereducation institutions (HEIs) and small, medium and micro-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the creativeand cultural industries (CCI). It does this by looking at the preliminary findings of CreativeworksLondon’s (CWL) Creative Voucher Scheme. The findings emerged from an analysis of applicationdata, ex post project final reports and interview data. The results to date show that: first, pastexperience in university – industry collaborations is tremendously beneficial to the success of thecollaboration ; second, the creative industries engages with a number of different actors that speakdifferent collaborative languages, actors are needed that are able to communicate at multiple levelsat once; third, the collaborative process is not simply a dualistic one between university and industrybut multi-layered involving a number of knowledge brokers in different positions in-between and atthe interstices of these organizational structures; fourth, administrative expediency with regards toimplementing these voucher schemes varies from university to university which point to potentiallylarge departmental differences that can affect the intended collaborations; and fifth, there needs tobe a managing of expectations and a balancing of different incentives when it comes to negotiatingthe outcome of these collaborations since university and industry move at different speeds andvalue different things