Innovation UK > News > Innovation UK Vol5-2 > Creating success

The UK?s creative industries are one of the great economic success stories of recent times. They generate revenues of nearly £70bn a year and account for thousands of jobs. They are also a great powerhouse for innovation, with entire sectors of the global creative industries market pioneered here thanks to UK-led inventions and technologies.

However, the pace of technological change and the ambitions of global competitors means that UK organisations must remain at the forefront of innovation and knowledge sharing.

To accelerate this important work, the UK?s Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network has launched an exciting new programme of 14 projects ? Beacons for Innovation ? it will tackle over the next two years. Each Beacon Project will examine the opportunities and challenges faced by the creative industries in relation to technology-focused innovation.

These 14 themes have been identified through extensive consultation with leading experts from across the UK. Each project will be run to a tight timetable to ensure it delivers real business value. A community will be created around each Beacon, with live events and online activities. These will identify the priority innovation and business needs that will enable organisations to turn the visions of the future that are generated by this work into business successes for the UK.

John Cass, director of the Creative Industries KTN says: ?The Beacon Projects involve innovators from all sectors of the creative industries and from across the UK. This is a unique opportunity to get involved with big debates and share great ideas with people who want to make things happen.?

The first three Beacon Projects have been launched. The first two look at digital content, what sort of devices will we be using to access content and how will networks need to develop to enable people to move, manage, track and store data. The third Beacon examines knowledge transfer and how the UK?s creative industries can better exploit KT opportunities.

Jeremy Davenport, deputy director of the KTN, says: ?As we spoke to people it became apparent that issues around digital content were vital to many areas of the creative industries and we are sure this Beacon will provoke a lot of interesting discussions. ?While knowledge transfer is an area where the creative industries do not engage as much as other sectors, we need to examine what can be done to address this as KT clearly offers huge opportunities.?

The KTN has launched a social-networking site to support the Beacon Projects and this will be at the heart of the communities and the Beacon Project activities. However, there will also be live events in various locations around the UK.

John adds: ?We want people from all areas of the creative industries and technology-related organisations to get involved, whether they work for multinationals or startups, academia or funding organisations. ?This is a very exciting opportunity to help shape the landscape for the creative industries and ensure that the UK remains a world-class innovator.?

Membership of the Creative Industries KTN is free and people can register and read the full Beacons for Innovation report at: www.creativeindustriesktn.org.