ABSTRACT
As I write, in July 2005, there is a renewed burst of interest by policy-makers in creativity. To give a few examples, Paul Roberts has just begun to review creativity in English schools; the Cultural Commission in Scotland has recently produced a sizeable and far-reaching report on Scotland’s creative needs; the new Creative Industries Minister in England, James Purnell, has outlined his vision for the creative industries; George Cox is reviewing how small and medium-sized enterprises can make better use of ‘creative specialists’. These projects, covering different spheres of endeavour, form a good starting point for why creativity is considered a valuable attribute for society, and how, within a policy-making community increasingly focused on delivery, the ‘c’-word is of interest. This chapter also considers some of the questions or difficulties that policy-makers have with making creativity a policy priority, briefly surveys the strategies for creativity adopted by NESTA (the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), and touches on the implications of the creativity agenda for higher education.
