A unique partnership bringing together the North East’s five
universities has supported hundreds of small businesses, helping to boost
innovation, create jobs and attract additional funding.
Creative Fuse has worked with more than 277 firms across the
North East since it began in 2016. Typically for the creative industries, 90% of
those had ten or fewer members of staff and around half had just one member of
staff.
The project was set up to help make the region’s creative
economy more resilient by sharing academic expertise to enable the sector
become more innovative and grow. Importantly, Creative Fuse also supported new
collaborations between creative businesses and the broader economy – ideas and
approaches from creative practice have stimulated innovation in other sectors,
from health and wellbeing, to future cities and ‘big data’.
Now reaching the end of its current phase, around 23 jobs are
expected to have been created and at least one organisation has recently received
a £100k funding boost.
Principal project investigator Professor Eric Cross, Newcastle University, said:
“Creative Fuse has developed in ways that we could not have predicted, and
while its main focus has been the creative and digital sector we have had
fascinating projects applying creative approaches to other areas included
health, data and manufacturing. At its core has been a highly successful
collaboration between the North East’s five universities – something that we
intend to continue into the future. Many firms had never worked with academics
before and some have described the effect on their business as
‘transformative’.
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the European
Regional Development Fund, Arts Council England and the five universities,
Creative Fuse included 30 innovation pilots as part of the £4m scheme. It
brought together firms and academics from Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria,
Sunderland and Teesside Universities, to address industrial, commercial and
social challenges.
Northumbria University provided a fully-funded support package, called
Get Ready to Innovate, to SMEs and registered sole traders, through which they
received twelve hours of action-focused intervention. The aim of these sessions
is to help SMEs and sole traders to develop their potential for innovation and
increase their understanding of how to overcome barriers and challenges using a
design-led approach. The participating businesses represented a diverse
selection of the North East’s Creative, Digital and IT sector with participants
including a legal aid firm, fashion and textiles businesses, a fund management
company, DJs, theatre makers and other social enterprises.
For more information about Creative Fuse please click here
