Vince Cable explained that in modern Britain, creative industries have become an important engine of economic development – in 2013 business in this industry accounted for approximately 5% of the country's economy, a company producing video games, software, TV shows, movies and other media products currently provides 11.7 million jobs.
"Creative industries includes music production, literature and design, but today these fields often overlap with information and communication technologies, which are the basis of the new information economy. It is here that the greatest profit is generated and there is rapid growth. For example, at the moment e-books are quickly developing, and thanks to sites like Netflix, cinematography has more incentive to develop" says Vince Cable.
According to Mr. Cable, to stimulate entrepreneurship development in creativity and innovation, the British government had to solve a number of challenges such as rebuilding the financial infrastructure, to ensure knowledge transfer between industry and research centers.
"One of the main issues was building a relationship between the industry and universities, to help them work together. For this purpose, we have setup a network of world-leading centers called “Catapult” centers. In Germany, to achieve the same purpose, there is the Fraunhofer model. They have a number of organisations to which representatives of small businesses can appeal. If you have an innovative idea, "polished" and tested, Catapult will help you to find experts in engineering, physics, or, say, arts, so you can complete your applied projects together with them", – the expert explains.
Vince Cable commented that there is no magic formula for rapid development of the creative economy. However, for healthy support of creativity and innovation, it is important that universities implement entrepreneurial approaches and not depend completely on government financing.
"To be a leader in the industry and a driver of development, universities should be financially independent. Five years ago, British universities experienced a dramatic change, which was partly due to the 2008 financial crisis, when it decided to raise the cost of tuition for students. As a result, there were mass protests across the nation. My political party suffered from that decision, but as a result of it, universities are now developing as a business structure. They are trying to attract students from within the country and abroad, and are look for and finding research funding, and they are no longer so dependent on the state," says Vince Cable.
Further to this topic, for those interested, ITMO University is holding a public lecture on April 22, with Oleg Tinkov, the founder of Tinkoff bank. The topic of the meeting is "Modern Entrepreneurship: What They Don't Teach You in College."
