Associate Professor Phillip McIntyre is a Communication and Media scholar from the School of Creative Industries, University of Newcastle. Phillip researches how novel and valued things are created by human beings. He seeks to answer a basic research question: what is the most rational and evidence-based way to explain how novel things are bought into being particularly within the creative industries? In addition to this basic research question, he also seeks to answer an applied question: How can these explanations help to increase humankind’s ability to generate unique and valued products, processes and ideas? In short he researches the phenomenon of creativity and innovation.
A/Prof McIntyre has been leading the ‘Hunter Creative Industries as an Entrepreneurial System’ project which was primarily funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant. Dr McIntyre was Lead CI on this grant formally entitled ‘Creativity and Cultural Production: An Applied Ethnographic Study of New Entrepreneurial Systems in the Creative Industries.’ This research project was the subject of a recent media piece written by economic geographer Prof Phillip O’Neill from UWS:
“Researchers at the University of Newcastle have set high standards in their report Creativity and Cultural Production in the Hunter. It’s a journey-setting document. [This] encyclopaedic 546-page report is a baseline study of the make-up of the creative and cultural industries in the Hunter. The Creativity and Cultural Production report is refreshingly different from the cash-for-comment economic analyses you see for many sectors. The report carefully explains the rich and diverse composition of the 10,000 workers in the creativity and cultural production sector and the $1 billion contribution it makes annually to the regional economy. At its core are musicians, the media, publishers, advertisers, designers, artists, the theatre, filmmakers, electronic gamers and architects. And for each paid professional there is a thick moleskin pad of amateurs, interns and volunteers, together delivering cultural products and services to a surprisingly vast Hunter audience” (O’Neill 2019, online).
The ‘Creativity and Cultural Production’ report has been taken up by policymakers and those working in, and dealing with, these increasingly significant industries, either educationally, politically, economically or culturally. At a deeper level this ARC funded industry linked research has helped expose and explain the Hunter’s regional creative system in action, what others have described as a dynamic innovation ecosystem. The research has had, as a result, a deep impact on the region so much so that Dr McIntyre and his research colleagues did very well in the recent national Impact and Engagement exercise. At the conclusion of this exercise, FoR 19, Creative Arts & Writing at the University of Newcastle (UON) received a HHH (3) score, the highest rating. Only four other institutions in the country achieved a rating like this for FoR 19. The UON Impact Case Study for FoR 19 was based on the ‘Hunter Creative Industries as an Entrepreneurial System’ project led by A/Prof McIntyre.