The creative industries are a relatively new market application area for the Technology Strategy Board, driven by the significant contribution the sector makes to the UK economy and the role technology plays in driving and inspiring innovation.

It is a vast and diverse sector spanning, advertising, TV & radio, film and video, software, music, design and publishing, computer games, crafts, performing arts, designer fashion, arts and antiques and architecture.

Combined, the sector accounts for over 6.4% GVA and is growing at twice the rate of the economy. Globally the UK enjoys a leading position across many of the sub sectors and according to a recent OECD report contributes a greater percentage to national GDP than any other country.

However the sector faces considerable challenges arising from their fragmented nature; the predominance of SME and micro organisations; the rapid change to products, services and business models brought about by digital technologies; and globalisation with emerging economies such as India and China increasing their investment in knowledge skills.

We have announced the "Metadata: increasing the value of digital content" competition which opens in September.

Investments to date include:

• The Launch of the Creative Industries Technology & Innovation Knowledge Transfer Network (www.citin.org) - to provide an overarching network to promote horizontal sharing of knowledge and best practice across the sub sectors; to identify cross cutting issues and opportunities and develop solutions to address them.
• Two calls for collaborative research -

In the first, a £10m call entitled "Exploiting Digital Technologies," we funded just under 150 projects with over 300 UK organisations, many of them SME and micro companies receiving grant funding.

The second, a £5m call entitled "Commercialising Content in a Digitally Networked World" is currently in competition.

Latest News from the Creative Industries team

Publication of the Three Year Technology Strategy for the Creative Industries

The result of extensive industry consultation, the strategy provides an outline of where we intend to focus investment over the next three years.

The Strategy is also available online here and we are looking for input. If you would like to participate in discussions about the implementation, please click here.