Creative Hubs and Urban Development Goals (UK/Brazil)

This project will contribute to international development by working with governmental, academic, and creative industry partners in Sao Paulo, Brazil to inform the design and operation of new publicly funded creative hubs. Creativity, digital inclusion, and the beneficial social impacts of a growing creative economy are key to the development goals of the State of Sao Paulo. Having invested significantly in the past in accessible IT facilities to enable access to digital technologies for disadvantaged communities, the State now recognises that digital inclusion is insufficient in itself to achieve their development goals, and is thus seeking to re-purpose these facilities as Creative Hubs that can support entrepreneurial activity, facilitate networking and collaboration between SMEs, and generate positive economic outcomes for disadvantaged communities within the State of Sao Paulo. They have a strong interest in working with researchers from Creativeworks London (CWL) and from the University of Sao Paulo (USP) to inform the methodology they will adopt to facilitate co-creation, networking, and collaboration within their creative hubs, and see this as a pilot for more significant and sustained collaborations in the future. This project builds on research into creative hubs undertaken within the AHRC-funded CWL project from 2012-16. This research has been widely disseminated internationally. Research partners from the USP participated in a workshop exploring the CWL methodology and research findings related to creative hubs in 2015. The CWL PI (Shiach) gave a keynote lecture at the ABRAPCORP Conference (Communication and Cultural Industries) in Sao Paulo in May 2016. This research visit was supported by People's Palace Projects (PPP), which has an outstanding record of UK/Brazil collaboration with a focus on culture and creativity. This project will support knowledge exchange with an impact on cultural and creative organisations and businesses in Sao Paulo. It will enhance the value of the original CWL project by examining how some of its major research findings can make an important contribution to policy development in other cities around the world - especially in the Global South. The project will contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals by focusing on two areas: Goal 8, 'promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all'; and Goal 11, 'make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable'. In terms of the contribution that Arts and Humanities research can make to international development, this proposal will make a contribution in two areas: first, by supporting emerging creative economies, creative practices and creative hubs in ODA recipient countries; and second, by developing the potential for arts and humanities research to catalyse knowledge exchange between higher education institutions, state government, and creative SMEs in Sao Paulo.

This project will contribute to international development by working with governmental, academic and creative industry partners in Sao Paulo, Brazil to inform the design and operation of new publicly funded creative hubs. This project builds on research into creative hubs undertaken within the AHRC-funded CWL project from 2012-16.

The target users and beneficiaries will be reached through non-academic and academic partners in Brazil. The Government of Sao Paulo (Technology and Urban Services Secretariat) will draw on CWL's research to shape its approach to establishing a new creative hub in Sao Paulo and developing appropriate methods to enable collaboration within that hub. It will facilitate access to SMEs in the creative economy and will also draw on the research and impact generated by this project to shape a large-scale project of investment in creative hubs across the State of Sao Paulo. The International CI (Nakano)'s extensive networks in the creative economy will be used to support engagement in the creative voucher scheme and in the research, and to aid broad dissemination and impact of the project's outcomes. The Creative Voucher scheme will build collaborative partnerships focussed on the business needs of the creative economy in Sao Paulo. PPP's extensive experience of creative projects that enable social transformation has been based on networks that will support elements of the impact of this project and of CWL's work more broadly.

The project will reach government, SMEs in the creative economy, researchers, managers of creative hubs and policy makers in Sao Paulo. The development of creative hubs is a key strategic aim of the Government of Sao Paulo, with an aim of enhancing digital inclusion, building entrepreneurial, business opportunities and skills for disadvantaged communities, and supporting cultural and economic development.

The outcomes and outputs will be disseminated through two events held in Sao Paulo in early 2017. The first will be a workshop for businesses and entrepreneurs who will be involved in a new creative hub in Sao Paulo, exploring methodologies to enable creative collaboration. The second will be a conference exploring the policy implications of the research, the impact of creative hubs on their local communities, and the impacts of the creative voucher projects.
The creative voucher projects will be evaluated to identify the benefits and impacts of university/SME collaborative research in Sao Paulo. This will be compared to the outputs of the creative voucher scheme run as part of CWL.

The Impact of CWL's advice on the approach to recruiting SMEs for a new creative hub will be reviewed with the project partners. The robustness of new networks will be tested through the development of a larger-scale collaborative bid.
In terms of longer term sustainability, this project is understood by all partners as a pilot, to enable a subsequent larger-scale collaborative research project focussed on the role of creative hubs and on new models of funding SMEs in the creative economy in Brazil and the UK. Applications to AHRC/FAPESP and to AHRC/Newton are being considered, and will be developed by partners during this project.