Data-Driven Innovation in the Creative Industries, new book led by Creative Informatics researchers coming soon

Data-Driven Innovation in the Creative Industries, published by Routledge, is a new collection of essays edited by Melissa Terras, Vikki Jones, Nicola Osborne and Chris Speed.

The book centres the role of data, digital technologies and innovations in the production and consumption of creative products and services. It reflects on our experiences in delivering, researching, and supporting the creative industries in Edinburgh and South East Scotland through the Creative Informatics programme, while also taking a necessarily global perspective, to examine how the creative industries can be supported to make use of data-driven innovation and digital technologies in their work.

The creative economy – defined by the United Nations as the part of the economy that is “at the crossroads of the arts, business and technology” (United Nations, 2008, p.iii) – generates social and cultural, as well as economic benefits to society. The relatively recent digitalisation of our lives – at work, at home, and in our relationships and leisure – has impacted how the creative and cultural sectors generate revenue, distribute their products and services, and reach audiences.

Data-Driven Innovation in the Creative Industries addresses, and unifies, some of the key interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral issues that the creative industries face when working with digital technologies and data. These include sector specific challenges – for example in live events and performance, as well as sustainable practice; support for Research and Development (R&D); digital and data skills and literacies; data ethics; legal frameworks; and diversity and inclusion.

Definitions of ‘creative industries’, ‘data’, and ‘innovation’ (which can sometimes prove elusive) are explored in the book through multiple perspectives on both practice and research. Each chapter poses questions and illuminates challenges and opportunities in data-led approaches and collaborations that innovate to generate value for the creative and cultural industries. Accompanying each contribution is a case study, that situates the issues discussed in the chapter in a specific, real-world example of R&D projects that explore data-driven innovation and digital technologies in the creative industries, many of which were supported by Creative Informatics.

Data-Driven Innovation in the Creative Industries is available to order or download in open access: