Hello everyone and thank you (Suzy!) for the invitation to be part of this month’s discussion.
Firstly some further details to introduce my particular interests and experience in collaborations between arts and the digital creative industries: I work as part of the Creative Exchange, which is an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Knowledge Exchange Hub for the Creative Economy. There is more on our website (http://thecreativeexchange.org/) but the essential point for this discussion is that we use digital making projects, with academic and creative/cultural industry partners, as a means of collaborative learning. i.e. Using co-design or co-creation as a means of knowledge exchange (although we’re not so keen on the term knowledge exchange…). So, we’re adding academics into the arts-digital creative industry mix.
My role in the Creative Exchange is to support our 8 PhD students at Newcaslte University (all with a variety of creative and technical practices) in their academic-industry collaborations, whilst also considering the wider implications of this approach. So, I’ve worked with quite a few of our collaborators over the last 18 months I’ve been here…
One thing we have noticed in facilitating these collaborations is the mismatch in terms of the pace of academic and industrial life (academia tending to be slower and more reflective/abstract, whereas industry tending to be quicker and more action-oriented and specific). This can be problematic in brokering and running such collaborations. I wonder if others have encountered similar difficulties?
Looking forward to the discussions,
Simon
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