University News Last updated 31 October 2011
Birmingham has won praise from Culture Minister Ed Vaizey after formally adopting Creative City status in recognition of its excellence in using cultural and creative expertise to help drive forward economic growth.
Birmingham City University is at the heart of this ambitious scheme – co-hosting a launch event at its Eastside facilities and recognised as a major investor and key partner with Birmingham Cultural Partnership, Birmingham City Council and the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP.
“The Creative City initiative is about harnessing the energy of our cultural and creative industries to drive economic growth through the development of a new approach, with the public sector working with the private sector to create important funds to make change,” said Joanna Birch, Head of Enterprise Development at Birmingham City University.
Culture Minister Ed Vaizey, who formally launched the Creative City scheme, added: “What is new here is the commitment to combine the culture and creative industries into an integrated economic strategy.”
The Creative City initiative will play a significant role by:
- creating a fund to build on existing public sector funding of the arts through loans, grants, match-funding and investments. The allocation of funds will be based on the potential for job creation and economic growth.
- outlining the vision for a new ‘museum quarter’, including a new museum of photography and the development of a new contemporary art gallery.
- exploring ways to unlock private sector and philanthropic support for culture, linking cultural development to wider economic growth.
Birmingham’s cultural sector is already well developed and is earning a national and global reputation.
The Creative City launch coincided with Birmingham City University-related projects being highlighted on the BBC’s flagship arts programme The Culture Show which showcased the city’s avant-garde arts community in Digbeth, on the doorstep of the Eastside campus. Gavin Wade, Director of Eastside Project, a public gallery partnered by the University, and Digbeth’s Project Pigeon which involved University architecture students, were featured in the programme.
Birmingham attracts high profile interest because is the only English city outside the capital to have a truly world-class symphony orchestra, ballet company, opera company and producing theatre. Birmingham is also home to some of world’s finest cultural artefacts – including the largest collection of pre-Raphaelite art in the world and the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard.
Birmingham City University, which supports many of these organisations, is one the UK’s biggest providers of talent to the creative industries, an important driver of the West Midlands economy and beyond(1).
The University is further strengthening its commitment by directly investing in the region’s cultural and creative sectors, including a flagship £60million project at Eastside to provide a state-of-the-art city centre campus.
The 18,310 sq metre facility is now being built on a plot adjacent to Millennium Point, providing a purpose-built home for the world-class provision for the University’s Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (BIAD) and Birmingham School of Media.
The new centre, which has been designed by Birmingham-based Associated Architects(2), promises an excellent student experience and will feature a large ‘Media Hub’ to include TV, radio and photographic studios that will underpin the University’s prestigious media production courses.
Notes to editors
- In 2008-09 Birmingham arts sector turnover was £78m, £12.5m was spent with local suppliers, 9,000 people were employed (70% of them residents of the city) and the sector contributed £271m to the local economy. 3.3m attend events each year and culture generates 9% of the region’s GVA.
- Leading firm Associated Architects have designed the University’s new £60million city centre campus which is taking shape at Eastside – and will provide a new home for the University’s art and design provision, including the Birmingham School of Architecture (BSA). Associated Architects can trace its beginnings directly back to the University because the three original partners – Richard Slawson, Malcolm Booth and Walter Thomson – were architect tutors before deciding to form their own company more than 40 years ago. That link to Birmingham City University continues today with three of the four current directors having completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the Birmingham School of Architecture.
[Picture Caption] Outlining the vision: Culture Minister Ed Vaizey (right) with Professor Dan Howard, Executive Dean of Birmingham City University’s Faculty of Performance, Media and English (PME) at the official launch of Birmingham’s Creative City initiative.