University boost for Liverpool cultural economy

LJMU’s rebranded School of Art and Creative Industries will help support skills and growth in the flourishing Liverpool City Region creative economy, the university says.

The school unites the university’s teaching, innovation and research portfolios in architecture, graphics, fine art, fashion, film, drama, museum and exhibition studies, journalism, media production, performance and more.

The Liverpool City Region has capitalised hugely on the Capital of Culture year in 2008, becoming a flag-bearer for the creative economy in music, culture and the arts, and events like Eurovision and Taylor Town contribute massively to the region’s £5bn-a-year visitor economy, which currently employs around 51,000 people.

Liverpool has recently been named by the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy as one of six UK ‘priority regions’ for potential growth around creative industries, receiving a share of £60 million in new government money.

The city region is also a ‘Creative Cluster’ for the music sector, having been granted £6.75m in funding to establish the Liverpool City Region as a music research and development (R&D) powerhouse and ecosystem.

The new School of Art and Creative Industries will bring together the resources of the Liverpool Screen School and Liverpool School of Art & Design.

Professor Rachel McLean, Director of the unified school and Chair of the Liverpool City Region Digital and Creative Cluster Board, said: “It is very timely to refocus as the Liverpool School of Art and Creative Industries, to combine our expertise to educate the best graduates and to have a single identity in the city region.

“It is important that graduates have inspiring employment opportunities but also the optimism to start new enterprise and build on the undoubted success of our cultural industries in the past decade or so. The new school brings together staff who produce internationally recognised research in the field of art and creative industries. This collaborative approach will enable us to expand our public engagement across the city region and beyond."

Image: Student architectural visions on show at the LJMU Graduate Design Show.