creative industries The QUT Creative Industries Experience Connecting business enterprise, education, research and development, cultural production and exhibition in a creative precinct The QUT Creative Industries Experience Table of Contents 3 Foreword 4 Introduction 6 The Creative Industries 7 John Hartley: Research-led educational renewal and economic-cultural convergence 12 Susan Street: Education renewal and the Creative Industries Faculty 18 Stuart Cunningham: The creative industries idea 20 Creative Enterprise 21 Anna Rooke: Creative Enterprise Australia: a model for growing the creative economy 24 Lindy Johnson: Queensland government leads on creative industries 28 Research 29 Stuart Cunningham: Renovating research and policy on creative industries and innovation 33 Jeff Jones: Effective collaboration for managing research and development (R&D) in Creative Industries 39 Philip Graham: Interdisciplinarity: six planes of engagement 42 Community 43 Stephen Pincus: KGUV: a creative and clever community 47 Christopher Wren: a view from the design perspective 49 The Hornery Institute: Staying in step with the emerging community 53 Lubi Thomas: QUT Precincts: Creating a new model of public engagement 56 Christopher Meakin: QUT’s international programs and linkages 60 Coda 61 Michael Keane: The uncertain journey 66 Appendices 66 Appendix 1: QUT Creative Industries research projects 69 Appendix 2: QUT Creative Enterprise Australia businesses The QUT Creative Industries Experience 3 Foreword Nearly a decade ago, QUT initiated an exciting experiment to lead the development of the creative industries in Australia. We established Australia’s first Creative industries The Creative Industries story continues to grow The essays in this publication document and Faculty and just a few years on, we are proud that in an exciting environment at Kelvin Grove. The explore the development of this innovative and it has proved itself to be a leader nationally and Faculty is based within the Kelvin Grove Urban highly successful academic and professional internationally, and a catalyst for other changes Village, a master-planned community developed initiative. There were many conceptual and across QUT. In addition to enjoying undergraduate in conjunction with the Queensland state practical challenges facing us as we sought to demand that is remarkably strong and sustained, government which brings together residential, establish a new model for advancing academic we also host the ARC Centre of Excellence for educational, retail, health, recreational and business work in conjunction with industry, professional Creative Industries and Innovation, the only such opportunities into a vibrant new precinct. Also and community development. The success of humanities-based Centre nationally. Meanwhile, in the Village is QUT’s Institute of Health and Creative Industries at QUT and its bright prospects we have developed QUT Creative Enterprise Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), our first and for the future are testament to the dedication and Australia, the very first business development foremost collaborative research institute which capability of the many people who have been, and agency actively supporting commercially driven has broken new ground in drawing together are, part of this exciting journey. creative industries nation-wide, and the Creative disciplines from around the University to improve Industries Faculty is also the lead agency in the health through research innovation. Further Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation planned developments at Kelvin Grove include the (iCi), a multi-faculty research institute at QUT. construction of a new library at the heart of the Peter Coaldrake campus, and the next phase of construction of the Vice-Chancellor Creative Industries Precinct. Queensland University of Technology (QUT) April 2010 4 Introduction This publication assembles essays by people There are four sections: The Creative Industries, Acknowledgements who are leading voices and practitioners in the Creative Enterprise, Research, and Community. creative industries, writing from the perspectives This publication has been the work of many people. of education, research and business development. In the first section the focus is on the definition The team received support from the Creative The idea for the publication arose from a request of the creative industries concept, the genesis of Industry Faculty, QUT International and the in 2007 from key Chinese policy academics for the Creative Industries Faculty, the QUT Creative Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation at information on what they called ‘The Queensland Industries Precinct and the Kelvin Grove Urban QUT. We would like to thank all the contributors model’. Apart from a co-authored article published Village, and how the environment is a learning for their valuable time and we are especially in Chinese in that year by three of the contributors benchmark globally for the creative industries. grateful to Terry Inglis and Ann Travers at QUT to this publication, there was little assembled Publications for their design and production The section Creative Enterprise looks closely at evidence of the model. expertise. Some material for this publication, business development and at how accommodations including the interview with Chris Wren and have been made to fine-tune an atmosphere in The interest from China culminated in requests to images of Kelvin Grove Urban Village, was sourced which both creativity and enterprise can flourish. visit and see the Queensland model first hand. Since from Helen Klaebe’s study Sharing Stories (2006 This section also includes a perspective from 2007, there have been many visitors to the Creative Focus Publishing). Helen provided valuable input the Queensland government, which has been a Industries Precinct and the Kelvin Grove Urban in the preproduction stage. Images of students were champion of the concept from the very beginning. Village. The tours have generally taken people to provided by Ellissa Nolan. Thanks to Hui Li for different organisational units within the larger Research addresses the core business of the her work as project manager. Other editorial and complex. This publication follows this approach but University. Education renewal has been a driving production assistance came from Susan Leggett, also shows how the various organisational units are concern within the Creative Industries Faculty. The Foluke Abigail Zrobok and Eli Koger. integrated. experiences will be of great value to educators and Michael Keane researchers, both in Australia and internationally. In the process of discussing with participants the April 2010 Queensland model became the QUT Creative The final section captures the experiences of the Industries Experience. And this is a key point. broader community, the Kelvin Grove Urban The essays do not contain recipes or formulas Village, QUT Precincts, and QUT’s international for success. They detail experiences and provide outreach programs. A concluding essay examines knowledge which may be of use to government, how the lessons encountered might assist similar urban planners, creative business operators and developments internationally. particularly to those concerned with educational reform. Some of the contributors express a sense of achievement in producing a new template or ‘model’; other essays address the challenges of working in an adaptive and creative environment. The QUT Creative Industries Experience 5 The Queensland model is influential in China but closer cooperation with QUT on creative precincts I visited the Creative Industries Precinct in 2006 as a few people can really explain what it is. I am very and enterprises in China. Of course, this is also an visiting scholar from the Chinese Academy of Social glad that Dr Michael Keane compiled this book to application and extension of the Queensland Model. Sciences. I was quite surprised by what I saw. At introduce research and practice on the Queensland that time many people in China were talking about model. I was at QUT for six months as a visiting Professor Jingchang Zhang, Beijing Academy of international examples of cultural and creative scholar in 2008. Before I left Brisbane, I discussed Science and Technology (BJAST); editor of the Blue clusters but this was quite a unique model. The with Michael about editing and publishing this book. Book of China’s Creative Industries open design of the precinct was especially interesting Now I am very pleased to see this fruition. to me. I liked how people could interact easily. And putting researchers and businesses together In fact, the Queensland model is similar to China’s in the one environment seemed like an interesting model of coordinated production, learning and experiment. Could this model be adopted in China research. The only difference is that QUT carefully even though we have a different way of managing integrated this kind of idea into planning when cultural industries and education provision? building the Kelvin Grove Urban Village. This has I returned to China and told people about the enabled research and teaching activities to exist Queensland model. Very soon this became a topic alongside the resident companies that are active in of conversation in government and academic circles design, production and marketing. This practice has and more Chinese visitors were applying for visas to also concentrated production, learning and research go and have a look. They were also inspired by