Creative workers, enterprises, venues and organisations across Argyll and Bute are set to receive bespoke business development help thanks to financial support from Creative Scotland’s targeted Covid-19 funds it has been announced.
Working with Culture, Heritage & Arts Assembly Argyll & Isles (CHARTS), Dr Michael Pierre Johnson of the GSA’s Innovation School, identified how a micro-cluster network could help contribute to local creative economic sustainability. Through identifying a network of six interconnected creative business communities, knowledge sharing and peer-to-peer networking will now be delivered and business and market development support provided. This important support comes at a time when creative businesses are facing particularly significant challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We were invited to help identify key challenges for the sector in the region and what collaborative opportunities could help address them,” explains Dr Johnson, a Research Fellow in the Creative Economy at the GSA . “Partnering with CHARTS we were able to devise an approach that could help deliver bespoke business support for creative businesses. Now thanks to the financial input from Creative Scotland’s Covid-19 funds it will be possible to put collaborative proposals that emerge into practice.”
The research project was part of Dr Michael Johnson’s AHRC-funded Innovation Leadership Fellowship, The Value of Creative Growth.