CREATOR Troubadour Study
August 6, 2008 by Giles Lane
Proboscis is collaborating with Sarah Thelwall to conduct a ‘troubadour’ study to investigate artistic & creative research models and the ways in which these interface between creative SMEs and organisations such as HE institutions and the Research Councils.
In the work which culminated in Capitalising Creativity, Sarah developed a model for defining those activities which are at the core of an artist or creative organisations activities versus those which exploit the intellectual capital created and leverage it into income streams and commercial collaborations. Whilst this model of ‘first ‘and ‘second order’ activities was a good fit for some SMEs, Proboscis concluded that the research focused approach which it pursues is not well suited to the development of second order activities in this manner. Instead Proboscis, and organisations with a similar outlook such as Blast Theory, have pursued an approach that increases connections and activities with research focused institutions.
It is these connections and methods that we would research in the Troubadour Study:
- what are the interactions between SMEs and research institutions?
- how does each side of a collaboration evaluate the partmnership and define ‘value’?
- how is this value communicated to funders and stakeholders?
- what are the limiting factors of such collaborations and why are there so few examples?
- what lessons can be learnt from the experiences of Cluster members Proboscis and Blast Theory and how might this contribute to influencing funding policies and frameworks?
Team : Sarah Thelwall and Giles Lane
Funded through the CREATOR Research Cluster, part of the EPSRC’s Digital Economy programme.
