Creative England Launches Creative Nation to Champion SMEs across England

Ed Vaizey MP, Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy, has announced Creative Nation – Creative England’s new programme to challenge the very best small creative and digital businesses across England to go beyond the £76.9bn they already contribute to within the UK’s economy by developing innovative creative and digital solutions for businesses across other economic sectors.

Announced during the annual ‘Creative England Live 2016: Catalyse’ event held at Google’s London headquarters, the minister’s announcement was accompanied by a call to action for a new corporate partner to join forces with Creative England and match its £250,000 pledge to find and invest in the country’s most entrepreneurial creative disruptors.

Creative England has extensive organisational experience of helping small creative and digital businesses succeed. In recent years it has started to help them access the commercial funding and expertise of some of the world’s largest companies, including through ground-breaking new partnership models with global brands Microsoft, The Walt Disney Company, Playstation, BBC, Channel 4 and Entertainment One.

In return for their support, large corporates have in the past gained from Creative England programmes in endless ways. Having become successful with a specific model and grown to encompass many more people in bigger structures, these companies prize the raw, unconstrained thinking and abilities small, young creative and digital businesses can bring to them.

Caroline Norbury MBE, CEO at Creative England, said: “As digital technology becomes increasingly important to a range of industry sectors, more big brands are starting to wise up to the immense benefits of outsourcing innovation by collaborating with small creative disruptors. Creative Nation is our way of celebrating and showcasing just how powerful creative business can be when it comes to cross-industry collaboration and developing products that extend well beyond the creative industries themselves”.

The potential Creative Nation partner could be medium or large private sector organisations and will work with Creative England to develop the Creative Nation brief. If you are interested in being a partner in the Creative Nation initiative, please email Johanna Bolhoven.

Creative England will then launch a national call for submissions from small creative and digital businesses later this year.

www.creativeengland.co.uk