Special Issue of industry & higher education “Cultural and creative industries and the challenge of sustainable development: Opportunities for higher education,businesses and communities” Introduction by the Guest Editors Prof Elisa Salvador and Prof Roberta Comunian

Initial ideas behind this Special Issue were developed in preparation for the Special Session on “Cultural and creative industries and the challenge of sustainable development: opportunities for universities, policy, industries and communities” chaired by the Guest Editors of the present Special Issue at the 20th Triple Helix Conference - Florence, 27-29 June 2022. The goal was to share ideas and perspectives among researchers with expertise in this field. Speakers from Europe and the United States presented works in progress and shared their vision with their fellow participants. The presentations and the following debates around these themes were inspiring, and, in the end, they sparked the idea for this Special Issue. Triple Helix Conference Special Session participants were thus invited to submit, for possible publication, a revised version of their work in progress presented in Florence in June 2022. However, the call for papers for this Special Issue of Industry and Higher Education was not restricted to the Special Session conference participants. Consequently, a strict selection process was put in place.

The Guest Editors invited contributions to enlighten our understanding of sustainability matters in the arts and culture sector and further our collective knowledge of the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) mission and their recent evolutions towards sustainable education programs. The Special Issue aimed at collecting original contributions on these topics. We welcomed qualitative and quantitative propositions covering different countries in the form of theoretical, conceptual and empirical contributions.

Several reviewers highly qualified in this research field and with an international profile were recruited to read and comment on the manuscripts. Thanks to their reports and to the engagement of the Guest Editors and the Editor in Chief, the selection process resulted in five articles being accepted. Furthermore, six case studies contributed to enriching the content of the Special Issue.

Finally, this Special Issue is an opportunity to discover how cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are embracing the challenge of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and to highlight best practices about sustainable solutions and HEIs relationships being implemented in several CCIs sectors.

Looking specifically at the content of the Special Issue, the first contribution is the article by Salvador Elisa and Comunian Roberta: “Why and How Higher Education is so important for Cultural and Creative Industrie’' sustainable development?”. The article retraces the CCIs' evolving interest on and focus in the academic and grey literature as well as the core role played by these industries facing the challenge of SDGs. The aim of this article is to highlight the pivotal role played by higher education (HE) and HEIs for the CCIs, their interactions, and their importance for sustainable development, by underlining why and how HE is so crucial for CCIs' sustainable development by looking at some concrete examples and predicting that an imitative behaviour will prevail in the near future.

The following article, “The Role of Higher Education in Sustainable Creative Careers: exploring UK theatre graduates and theatre careers”, is written by de Bernard Manfredi, Comunian Roberta, Jewell Sarah, Salvador Elisa and O'Brien Dave, and it is about the fundamental role played by HE and HEIs in sustainable creative careers. By using a mixed methodology (i.e. data from UK Higher Education Statistical Agency and semi-structured interviews), the authors focus on the under-researched theatre sector. They explore UK theatre graduates and their careers as well as the responsibility of HEIs to support local creative ecosystems and sustainable career trajectory, not only in the performance, but also in the teaching sector.

The third article is entitled “Culinary Movements and Higher Education Collaborating for Sustainable Development”, written by Cappelen Sophie and Strandgaard-Pedersen Jesper. These authors explore the forms of collaboration between HEIs and culinary movements facing sustainable change. Slow Food, New Nordic Cuisine and New Anatolian Cuisine are the three culinary movements engaged with a sustainability agenda that Cappelen and Strandgaard-Pedersen investigate in their article. They identify four types of interactions: formal collaboration, imitative practices, enlisting academics and emulating academic events.

The fourth article, contributed by Dent Tamsyn, England Lauren, and Comunian Roberta and entitled “The challenges of developing sustainable cultural and creative ecosystems and the role of Higher Education Institutions: Lessons from Dundee and Chatham, UK”, looks at the resources necessary for developing sustainable creative economies and cultural and creative ecosystems in two small-sized cities in the UK, Dundee (Scotland) and Chatham (England). To this end, they adopted a qualitative methodology, using mainly interviews and focus groups. Their findings highlighted the benefits of interconnections and interdependencies between HEIs and CCIs at the local level.

In the final article, “Higher education and sustainable creative cities: the development of creative and cultural ecosystems in the (new) capital city of Kazakhstan”, Kim Sana and Comunian Roberta examine the challenges and constraints linked to the top-down development of a new political and cultural capital city (Astana) in Kazakhstan, considering the role played by creative and cultural HEIs. To this end, they conducted extensive desk-based research, which included a mapping of creative and cultural HE infrastructure in Almaty (former capital city) and Astana and several face-to-face interviews in both cities. They highlighted that the investment in creative HE and creative human capital is a long-term investment which requires a long-term vision and strategy.

The six case studies included in this Special Issue are useful to illustrate some of the theories and literature captured by the five articles. They present examples of practice and can be read under two key headings that bring forward the challenges faced by HE and CCIs when engaging with SDGs.

The first three case studies are concerned with how to do engagement. Waithira Kibuchi, Folakemi Ogungbe and Vuyolwethu Madyibi illustrate how the project African Hub for Sustainable Creative Economies explored opportunities for “Brokering collaborations between academia and the creative economies in Africa through Creative Imagination Workshops”. The case study describes a specific brokerage model (Creative Imagination Workshops) adopted and goes into detail on how the specific project promoted collaboration across the academic and creative sectors in three African countries using online interactions and platforms. The conclusion reflects on the importance of ‘third spaces’ that enable collaborations. This case study offers insight into large international and inter-university projects. Chiara Donelli and Fabrizio Panozzo’s “Connecting University Research across Culture, creativity, and Business: The Case of Aiku Centre”, on the other hand, focuses on similar brokerage practices but from the perspective of a single university (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy) engaging with its stakeholders and expanding its “third mission” activities via a space for collaboration between artists, industries and communities, called the Aiku Centre. The Centre acts as a broker between the University, the artistic and local businesses and city-based communities. This is done with an understanding that the collaboration can benefit the regional innovation system but also with broader societal goals of HE knowledge dissemination and awareness. The Aiku Centre also showcases the transformative potential of art in addressing critical issues and pressing environmental and social challenges. Finally, Jen Snowball, Fiona Drummond and Delon Tarentaal, (“Supporting the festival industry in troubled times: higher education research and collaboration with festivals in South Africa during COVID-19”) present another module of direct engagement of HE knowledge and research with the festival sector. Here, we see how research co-produced and shared in an iterative model between research and practitioners can benefit the sector in real-time, especially during a movement of crisis like a global pandemic.

The last three case studies are concerned not just with the mechanisms and opportunities for engagement but with how this engagement of HE can be done while promoting equity and inclusivity. In the first case study, “From Equality to Equity: A Case Study of Creative Shift's ‘The Leader Within Women + of Colour Leadership Programme”, Atif Ghani and Tessa Read reflect on the way HE can be better at supporting students from diverse backgrounds into creative occupations and career progression. Using the case study of the University of the Arts London and its positive action intervention approach, they explore how taking a more equitable, asset-based approach supports the retention, attainment and employability of Black, Asian and self-defined female + students. They acknowledge the potential of HE to develop support for marginalised students through a range of initiatives that facilitate a more equitable and diverse creative economy.

In the second case study, Sophie Whitehouse and Cristina Galalae reflect on practices of inclusion within UK business schools. Writing about “Opportunities for promoting societal inclusion through Higher Education Cultural and Creative Industries Courses: evidence from UK Business schools”, they present evidence from the analysis of public-facing course materials commonly used by students deciding on their future course of study. Here, they find that inclusive practices feature in curriculum design and delivery, assessment and feedback, engagement with businesses and the community, and employability support for graduates.

Finally, Estrella Sendra Fernandez’s “Embracing Collaborations between Festivals and Higher Education: A Case Study of the ‘Decolonising Film Festivals and Curating African Cinemas’ Networking Event at King’s College London” reflects on the need for universities to embrace social responsibility, encouraging knowledge exchange initiatives and impact. However, collaboration between HE and the Industry needs to take into account the importance of horizontalism, fostering a safe and fruitful discussion. She argues that the curatorial turn helps build bridges between theory and practice. It promotes social justice, engaging all participants in the process.

While the foregoing selection of articles and case studies cannot be considered a comprehensive overview of the complex interactions between sustainability, HEIs and CCIs, this Special Issue is a first step in advancing the academic literature on this young and niche subject. Furthermore, the themes and concerns highlighted in these articles underline the importance of conducting more and better research in such a pivotal field within the CCIs, while the case studies enable us to discover the description of interesting projects in this field.

In presenting this Special Issue of the Journal, we hope to elicit the interest of other researchers in this subject.

The Guest Editors thank all the authors of this Special Issue for their original contributions. They are also grateful to John Edmondson, former editor of Industry and Higher Education Journal, and David Allnutt, current editor of this Journal, for the enthusiasm shown since the beginning about the idea for this Special Issue and for their constant support and encouragement. Finally, the Guest Editors acknowledge the Research Visiting period (April 2023) of Prof. Elisa Salvador at King’s College, London (UK). This research visit enabled the Guest Editors to significantly advance the content and organisation of the present Special Issue.