Seemingly a paradox exists in the arts: creativity and novelty lie at the heart of all artistic endeavour, yet funders call on arts and cultural organisations to be more innovative. Understanding this paradox is one of the reasons why NESTA embarked on the research on which this report is based.

Although there is an increasing recognition of the positive role that creative industries play in innovation and growth, there is little evidence on the spatial dimension of this impact. An ongoing NESTA project employs economic geography techniques to address this gap, with the aim of improving our understanding of the mechanisms through which creative industries...

This paper sets out an argument that behavioural biases and heuristics can make it difficult for small and medium‐sized firms to adopt best practice innovation processes that are necessary for competitive advantage. It further argues that innovation services provided by creative businesses can help address these behavioural failures to improve the innovation performance of firms...

Traditional understandings of innovation emphasise the importance of science and technology research. In contrast, this paper investigates the role that arts and humanities research plays in the innovation system.