Creative Case Studies

University of the Arts London (UAL) has developed the Creative Attributes Framework to strategically articulate how creative higher education equips students with the qualities and capabilities they need to sustain long and rewarding professional lives. The framework maps nine attributes, organised into three overarching capacities, which encompass: 

• ethical practice
• collaboration
• adaptability
• resilience
• entrepreneurial thinking

Each attribute is demonstrated through practical skills and behaviours that are integrated across the curriculum, ensuring that they form part of the student learning journey rather than being treated as an add-on.

Originally funded by the Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE), the framework provides a practical tool for embedding employability and lifelong learning into creative education. The framework shows how creative courses develop not only technical expertise but also the broader attributes that enable graduates to respond to change, contribute responsibly to society, and innovate in their fields.

By articulating these qualities in this way, UAL has developed a tool that is useful for students, educators, employers, and policymakers alike. The framework demonstrates that the outcomes of creative study extend beyond discipline-specific skills to include a wider set of capabilities that are relevant in cultural, social and economic settings. 

Royal Central School of Speech and Drama conducted a project in collaboration with the Dementia Care Team at Imperial NHS Trust. The project harnesses theatre and applied storytelling to improve NHS patient and staff wellbeing. The work brings performance, intergenerational interaction, and arts-based care into wards where people live with dementia or receive acute treatment. Through process drama workshops, film, and digital media, the project aims to reduce agitation, distress or loneliness in patients, build human connection, and offer moments of joy in often stressful hospital environments.

Recognised nationally, this work demonstrates that the skills taught in creative institutions – empathy, narrative framing, ensemble collaboration, creative improvisation – are not just for the stage. They have powerful applications in health: transforming patient experience, supporting staff morale, and deepening community across generations.

Over the past 15 years, London Contemporary Dance School alum Jen McLachlan has provided leadership and consultancy across a wide range of cultural infrastructure projects, following senior roles at national and international funding bodies including Arts Council England and Australia Council for the Arts. Her practice has focused on shaping major developments that deliver long-term cultural and social value, particularly within East London’s evolving cultural landscape.

Key projects include the new home for English National Ballet at London City Island, the UK’s first Talent House for Urban Culture at Sugar House Island, and Studio Wayne McGregor at Here East, the first cultural organisation to establish itself in the Olympic Park following the Games. Each required close collaboration with developers, architects, and public agencies, alongside the strategic management of complex stakeholder interests and negotiations with both public and private partners.

Her work extends beyond the successful delivery of world-class facilities to the establishment of sustainable operating models. This has involved supporting executives, boards, and senior teams to develop robust governance, financial planning, and risk management processes. Most recently, in her role as Project Director at V&A East, she has overseen the completion of V&A East Storehouse and the David Bowie Centre, both opening to critical and audience acclaim and in Spring 2026 will open V&A East Museum where she will have led completion of the building project, mobilisation and operational readiness.

Through this work, Jen demonstrates the versatility of outcomes that are possible from dance education. Her work is instrumental to how cultural infrastructure, when aligned with strategic planning and strong leadership, can thrive as a sustainable and transformative force within wider social and economic settings. Read more about alumni from The Place.

ATTUNE was a five-year arts and young people’s mental health research project, run in partnership with Oxford University, which concluded in summer 2025. The project focused on co-creating research and outputs. It aimed to understand the pathways of risk and resilience from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to adolescent mental health outcomes.

To do this, it brought together a national consortium of academic, public sector, voluntary and community sector, and charity partners. The project used participatory, arts-based research methods alongside epidemiology and health economics. Through creative, co-designed activities with young people, ATTUNE uncovered new insights into how these experiences affect mental health, and how support services can respond in ways that young people find meaningful and validating. The project included:

• A co-designed computer game that provides a private, creative space for young people affected by ACEs to reflect on their experiences.
• An immersive final conference, Disrupting the Silence (July 2025), which replaced conventional presentations with audio-visual soundscapes, a short film, live visual art and facilitated dialogues led by young people.
• A public health resource, Validating Voices, for professionals and young people, designed to embed validation in everyday conversations within public sector settings. The toolkit, combining physical and online resources, helps staff recognise and act on opportunities for “micro-validations” that build trust, self-worth and safety, and ultimately demonstrate that the young person is being taken seriously.

Founded in 1995, the Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) has established itself as a pioneering force in creative education, nurturing talent across music performance, production, business, songwriting, and beyond. 

At the heart of ACM’s approach is Industry Link – a dedicated department that connects students directly with the professional world of music. Industry Link provides a curated network of opportunities, from work placements and internships to live briefs, auditions, and exclusive networking events. By bridging the gap between education and employment, ACM ensures its students graduate as industry-ready professionals, contributing immediately to the creative economy.

Industry Link is supported by an unparalleled network of partners, including record labels, management companies, live venues, promoters, and music technology firms. Through this initiative, students have gained hands-on experience with organisations such as Metropolis Studios, one of Europe’s most renowned recording facilities. Opportunities include working on professional sessions, shadowing established producers, and even releasing music through ACM’s own in-house label, Metropolis Blue.

The outcomes of this approach are clear: ACM students and alumni have gone on to work with world-leading artists, secure roles at top labels, and establish thriving careers as independent creatives. The direct engagement with industry professionals ensures that the skills taught in the classroom are immediately transferable to professional contexts, closing the talent pipeline between education at ACM and the music industry.

Istituto Marangoni London plays a distinctive role in strengthening the UK’s luxury and fashion pipeline. Its graduates enter an industry that contributes over £62 billion in gross value added (GVA) to the economy and supports more than 1.3 million jobs, with London alone accounting for around 210,000 roles. The luxury sector itself is now worth £81 billion annually, underpinned by brands and businesses that rely on a constant flow of specialist talent. Against this backdrop, the School’s most recent data, from a private research firm, shows an employability rate of 96%, demonstrating its effectiveness in preparing students for immediate impact.

Graduates from the London campus have gone on to secure roles at Burberry, Net-A-Porter, Stella McCartney, and Chopard, while others have carved out careers in fashion media and luxury brand communications. The economic and cultural impact of Istituto Marangoni London is significant. By supplying specialist skills into a sector that underpins UK exports, retail, and international prestige, the School contributes to the competitiveness and global reach of British fashion. Its emphasis on sustainability, adaptive design, and digital innovation also supports the industry’s long-term growth, helping it adapt to shifting consumer values and international market pressures.

The London campus of MetFilm School is based at Ealing Studios, a heritage site having hosted productions such as Downton Abbey, The Imitation Game, Black Mirror, The Crown, and Last Night in Soho. Students benefit from being physically surrounded by working film production culture. Proximity to companies like The Imaginarium (motion capture, founded by Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish) gives both inspiration and opportunity.

MetFilm School offers built-in work‐experience through multiple routes:

• Work placements / internships: enabling students to gain real production experience, make professional contacts, and understand the workflows of working in studios. Some placements convert into internships after graduation.
• In-house opportunities: Students can work for MetFilm Production and the School’s Kit Room, gaining technical, creative, or operational experience on real productions. For example, the Kit Room offers three-month internships for roles such as cinematography or camera department.
• Festival, masterclasses & guest speakers: Students are supported to submit to film festivals; they attend masterclasses and modules where industry professionals present current case studies.

MetFilm School London at Ealing Studios exemplifies how specialist screen education can act as a direct pipeline into the film, TV, and screen content industries. By embedding students in professional studios, aligning teaching with working practices, ensuring exposure to international, high-profile productions, and facilitating hands-on experience, the School helps:

• Reduce the gap between graduate expectations and employer needs
• Inject skilled practitioners into creative supply chains – from tech, VFX, direction, production, acting
• Support the UK screen industries’ ability to compete globally through innovation, quality, and a continuous stream of talent

MetFilm School London contributes not only to individual careers but to the economic, cultural, and prestige value that screen production brings to the UK.

The Global Smart Lab at Winchester School of Art brings together expertise in creative computing, AR/VR, AI technologies, inclusive design, smart service design, smart textiles, and data visualisation.

Working closely with WSA’s other specialist labs – the Data Image Lab and Design Studio, Materials Lab, and Social Lab – the Global Smart Lab represents an interdisciplinary space where people, facilities, and ideas converge. Through the wider University of Southampton, the Lab also connects with leading centres in computing, engineering, life sciences, health, marine sciences and beyond, including collaborations with the Web Science Institute, the National Oceanography Centre, the Research Centre on Ageing, and the Alan Turing Institute.

The Lab’s mission is to advance research at the intersection of art, design, and smart technologies, tackling critical challenges in AI, AR/VR, inclusivity, data culture, and sustainability. Its work spans health, wellbeing, education, learning, and leisure, with current projects exploring:

• Immersive design for museums and education
• Smart service design for ageing populations
• AI-enabled creative processes
• Smart textiles to support health and well-being
• Zero-waste and sustainable innovation

Through critical and creative methods, international collaborations, and a global network of hubs and pop-up labs, the Global Smart Lab demonstrates how creative education is driving innovation with impact across diverse disciplines, industries, and societies.

The AUB Innovation Studio is a multi-disciplinary centre combining design thinking and creative technology to support pre-start-ups and established businesses with prototyping, testing and upskilling for growth and sustainability. 

In fashion, AUB are driving digital transformation and advancing sustainability through pioneering partnerships such as high-growth performance outerwear brand, ThruDark, while ensuring graduate skills are aligned with real-world workflows.  

The application of digital processes in development increases competitive advantage by improving speed-to-market for new products while reducing the impact of sampling on the environment through minimising wasted materials and the need for global transportation. At the other end of the process these tools can also be used to reduce costly returns and reduce deadstock going to landfill. 

Through the new PlastIC (Plastic Innovation and Curation) Research Centre, AUB combines scientific expertise with design insight, providing solutions for the heritage sector, by conserving plastic artefacts, and the manufacturing industry, by developing more sustainable products. PlastIC combines world-leading research with hands-on collaboration to tackle one of the most urgent material challenges of our time. Initial projects include, working with the Marine sector to reduce the reliance on Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) and working with cosmetic manufacturers to enhance recyclability of containers and experiment with alternative materials for packaging.

Falmouth University’s Immersive Business project shows how creative higher education powers local growth while connecting to global opportunities. In response to the regional challenge that businesses do not have the sufficient information or knowledge of the risk and return when it came to investing in new technologies, this project was born. Based in Cornwall, the initiative brings businesses and researchers together to explore how immersive technologies – from XR to virtual production – can unlock new markets and drive innovation.

By embedding research expertise directly into the region’s economy, Falmouth is helping SMEs across sectors like tourism, heritage, and health adopt cutting-edge tools. This not only strengthens Cornwall’s creative industries but also ensures the wider business community benefits from innovation that boosts resilience and competitiveness. Through R&D, training, and collaboration, Immersive Business is building a regional cluster around immersive technology—linking graduate talent to industry needs, generating high-value jobs, and attracting inward investment. It’s a clear example of how creative universities regenerate places, fuel innovation, and shape ecosystems where creativity and commerce thrive side by side. The evaluation showed that Immersive Business created 87 net additional jobs by 2025 and over £12,000,000 in net additional GVA by 2030.  

The Centre for Sustainable Design (CfSD) researches, develops and disseminates understanding of present and future sustainability impacts and solutions related to sustainable innovation and product sustainability.

Its prime motivations are to understand the policy and business implications of sustainable innovation and work with companies to develop sustainable solutions. To understand the organisational, management, development, and design implications of product sustainability, and working with companies to develop and deliver relevant programmes.

CfSD is an internationally recognised centre of excellence for its research around reuse, product circularity in the creative industries, and UK repair cafes, working with partners across Europe, North America, and Asia.

Research has been completed in areas related to sustainable consumption and production (SCP), ‘producer responsibility’, product policy, eco-innovation, eco-design, design for remanufacturing, eco(packaging) design, marketing, procurement, supply chain management, product-service systems (PSS), and new business models.

Current projects include:

• Farnham Repair Cafe – CfSD is a partner of this community workshop focused on repairing products
• Just Fashion – CfSD is a partner in Just Fashion Project, focusing on accelerating the climate transition in the fashion industry
• Cricket Gear Reuse - to catalyse and accelerate cricket gear and clothing reuse
• Product Circularity for Cricket: reuse, education, and prototyping – focusing on the reuse and repair and product circularity issue in cricket gear design and development
• Product Circularity, fashion, clothing and textiles – supporting companies and other stakeholders consider issues related to the increasing Circular Economy agenda
• Vegan Leather Cricket Gear – reporting and disseminating information related to the potential application of vegan leathers to cricket gear

Through preeminent research, real-world projects, collaborative knowledge exchange, global networks, workshops, and conferences, the Centre for Sustainable Design demonstrates its leadership in driving innovation in sustainable design across a range of sectors in the creative industries and beyond.

The MusicFutures Creative Cluster is a five-year, £6.75 million programme funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, designed to celebrate the Liverpool City Region as a global leader in music innovation, sustainability, and research. Led by the University of Liverpool in partnership with Liverpool John Moores University, and with more than twenty regional stakeholders, including the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA), the initiative brings together higher education, industry, local government, and the creative sector to strengthen the city’s cultural and economic future.

LIPA plays a vital role in this collaboration. Building on its reputation for producing industry-ready graduates, LIPA contributes by developing skills pathways and training opportunities, most notably through apprenticeships that support emerging artists and entrepreneurs. This focus ensures that young people in the region, no matter their background, are equipped not only with creative expertise but also with the professional and entrepreneurial capabilities needed to thrive in today’s cultural economy.

The programme seeks to open opportunities for underrepresented local groups across the music ecosystem. At the same time, it supports creative entrepreneurship by offering mentorship and business development services that help freelancers and small ventures establish sustainable practices. Sustainability itself is another defining strand of the project: drawing on research from the University of Liverpool’s Centre for Sustainable Business, MusicFutures explores new ESG-driven business models that could set benchmarks for responsible practice across the UK music industry nationally. 

Based in the Tees Valley, The Northern School of Art is one of the UK’s few remaining independent art schools and plays a vital role in nurturing talent across disciplines such as film, television, design, fine art, and digital media. With campuses in Middlesbrough and Hartlepool, the School is deeply embedded in the cultural and economic fabric of the region, committed to supporting creative careers and driving innovation in the North East.

In 2022 The Northern School of Art launched The Northern Studios in Hartlepool, the North East’s only large-scale commercial film and television production facility. Developed in partnership with Hartlepool Borough Council, Tees Valley Combined Authority, and North East Screen, the Studios are a wholly owned subsidiary of the School and serve as a bridge between education and industry. Productions such as Jackdaw, Transaction (ITV), and I Fought the Law (ITV) have already been filmed and based at the Studios, demonstrating the appeal to national broadcasters and their growing reputation as a regional production hub.

Building on this momentum, a £33.5 million expansion has been approved to create a Screen Industries Production Village in Hartlepool. This ambitious project will repurpose nine disused town centre buildings – including the Grade-II listed Shades Hotel – into a vibrant ecosystem for production, innovation, and collaboration. The development has already received planning consent and is expected to be funded by the Tees Valley Investment Zone, and the Levelling Up Fund.

The Northern Studios and the forthcoming Production Village are central to Hartlepool’s regeneration strategy. The initiative is expected to create over 130 new jobs, support local SMEs, and attract further private sector investment. By revitalising underused heritage buildings and embedding creative industries in the town centre, the project will help reposition Hartlepool as a dynamic cultural and economic destination.

The Studios also play a key role in the wider North East Screen Industries Partnership, which has secured £11.4 million in funding – including £4.5 million from the Tees Valley Mayor – and complements the BBC’s £25 million commitment to the region. This coordinated investment has already led to an 89% increase in production activity, generating £40.2 million in GVA and creating 650 full-time equivalent jobs across the North East.

The Northern School of Art continues to champion local talent, providing a direct pathway from education to employment in the screen industries. The Studios exemplify the School’s commitment to regional development, creative excellence, and inclusive growth.

Fab Lab South West, at the Arts University Plymouth, is the largest fabrication laboratory in the South West of England. It is an open-access workshop offering the public, students, and businesses access to state‐of‐the‐art digital fabrication technologies. Located in the university’s £8 millon craft & design workshop complex, Fab Lab South West provides an environment in which traditional craft meets new technologies, allowing innovation to emerge not just technically but aesthetically as well. 

Fab Lab South West offers a mix of services across education, business, and community. In education, it supports students (from Arts University Plymouth and beyond), schools, and educators, giving them access to equipment like 3D printers, laser cutters, scanners, etc. It helps turn ideas, drawings, and concepts into physical prototypes, artworks, or research materials. Workshops and training are provided, including for those who are new to making and digital tools.

On the business side, it supports product development, advanced manufacturing, and materials research – helping companies, entrepreneurs or inventors to move from concept to working prototype. For the local community, the FabLab offers membership, open access, and collaborative making for people from various backgrounds to use the lab, learn new skills, and experiment.

Super Normal Extra Natural is a community engagement project, a learning opportunity for students, and a resurrection of a forgotten city space all at once. The Place Associate Artist and alum Frauke Requardt lent her expertise in creating impactful sight-specific performances, to lead a cast of professional artists, The Place students and Croydon locals in coming together to create a dance piece that gives new life to a significant neighbourhood sight and generates lasting change for a historically culturally neglected borough. This project was part of This is Croydon (London Borough of Culture 2023). 

As the future generation of dance makers, London Contemporary Dance School students not only gained professional performance experience but learned first-hand how their art form has the potential to benefit a community and create lasting change. A unique contribution to London’s creative arts scene today, this learning will continue to resonate with our students creating a legacy for future ambitious creative opportunities, activism and changemaking through dance. 

Norwich University of the Arts has identified the East of England as a high-growth potential region for the games industry. With the games industry as the sixth biggest market in the world, it is an economic powerhouse for the UK, with the workforce holding more full-time contract roles than many other creative industries and 80% of workers based outside of London. There is a huge potential for this industry to bring productivity, prosperity and attract high-skilled jobs to a primed region - this report explains why it should be the East. 

The East of England has major strength in higher level games education, led by Norwich University of the Arts, alongside University of East Anglia (UEA), University of Suffolk and a strong further education players in the region. The region is a net exporter of games talent, in both design and development. Several hundred students each year graduate from these institutions – many more adjacent disciplines such as animation, VFX and creative computing. The region hosts a distributed network of experienced industry professionals working on some of the world’s biggest titles - Fable, Sea of Thieves, Until Dawn, Fortnite. The GVA they deliver is currently outside of the region – but they are an untapped talent pool that could be connected to businesses across the games ecosystem to unlock and catalyse growth in the East. 

Future workforce planning and considerations of the regional economy is at the heart of this research and advocacy campaign, demonstrating the eagerness, awareness and unlocked potential of many creative institutions working outside of the capital. 

Colourful Heritage is a collaborative heritage and outreach project which provided work experience opportunities for students, and learning opportunities for local school children and teachers.

Funded by a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant and delivered in partnership between University for the Creative Arts, Zandra Rhodes Studio, and The Zandra Rhodes Foundation, it archived 150 fashion pieces from the British fashion designer, Dame Zandra Rhodes, and offered opportunities for students and young people to engage directly with creativity and the creative industries through in-person internships and workshops, using Zandra's work and experiences as a catalyst.

The internship programme was created for young people to learn professional skills and gain hands-on practical experience of working in a commercial fashion and textiles designer’s studio, while supporting the cataloguing and digitising process. It was designed to: enhance their CV, improve employment opportunities after study, and bolster their confidence. All students are now working in fashion, with one of them working at the Zandra Rhodes Studio.

The school's outreach programme engaged 16–18-year-olds in Medway, Kent, where Zandra Rhodes grew up and studied. 83 students were engaged across five schools. The primary goal was to improve practical skills in drawing and creativity, to understand what heritage is – and what it can mean to them – and to feel a sense of pride and achievement in their own work. The programme also looked to increase levels of confidence and aspiration in children growing up in areas of relative deprivation.

It was also recognised that to deliver this effectively, teachers, researchers, and academics who support young people in their studies and early careers must also understand and have access to the resources created by the project.

The outreach programme was delivered in three stages: a #draweveryday social media campaign, creative workshops at University for the Creative Arts with industry-standard equipment, and an exhibition of the students’ work in a local arts space.

It offered insight into the ongoing creative practice of an internationally significant figure in fashion heritage, leading to a more disciplined approach to their own creative practices and an understanding that creative higher education and creative professions are viable career options.