New Zealand’s creative economy: in search of research

Abstract

The activity of researching is a customary part of creative work, often for understanding the wider territory of an assignment, resolving issues of production, or optimising creative outcomes. Creatives do not always appreciate or even recognise the commercial value of their research, i.e. in the form of novel processes, unique applications of technology, or ground-breaking creative solutions. A mixed-model study into on-the-job research practices in New Zealand’s creative industries evidenced a profound disconnection between research input in creative labour and output of economically deployable innovation. It was observed that although many originations effectively resulted from creative research practice, these were not normally leveraged beyond the immediate task. Against the backdrop of New Zealand’s aspiration to become a leading innovation economy, the article proposes the development of a knowledge-sharing innovation ecosystem that absorbs the manifold casual research outcomes from creative production work and develops pathways for New Zealand’s creative professionals to convert imaginative specialist solutions into sustainable innovation capital.