R&D in the creative industries: Bringing the ‘dark matter’ of the sector to light with data

The absence of a theoretically consistent framework for deciding what is or is not a creative industry makes for inconsistent data collection regarding their activities, which has implications for methods, analysis, and sector-related policy recommendations. To achieve insight into how best to support and to grow the creative industries, accurate data needs to be collected, analysed, and shared differently. Though prior research programmes have attempted to address improvements to data-informed policy design in the creative industries, innovation has been relatively slow to be adopted, and data regarding the creative industries is often thought of as ‘dark matter’. Based on research examining new methods for the ethical collection, storage, processing, and analysing of data in the creative industries that can support continuous learning, this chapter recommends two improvements: first, the growing body of research on novel frameworks for improving creative industries data should inform future directions for data platforms used by funding agencies and other strategic bodies. Second, interdisciplinary groups of stakeholders should collaborate on improving the creative industries data ecosystem for all.