Loughborough University: Mapping India’s creative industries to identify new collaborative opportunities

Bollywood, handicrafts, textiles, and festivals… creative industries are a massive part of the Indian economy, yet the potential for collaboration in this area is not necessarily appreciated by the rest of the world.

A new Loughborough University-led project looks to map growth and innovation in the Indian Creative Industries in a bid to increase partnerships between UK and Indian businesses and researchers.

The project, which is headed by Graham Hitchen and brings together UK and Indian universities, is one of several projects funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) that were announced following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit to India.

The Loughborough research will generate a ‘heat map’ of the creative industries and deep dive into key opportunity sub-sectors to identify where there may be the greatest potential to grow or develop India-UK research and innovation collaboration.

Mr Hitchen, the Associate Dean for Enterprise for Loughborough University London and a Senior Enterprise Fellow within the Institute for Media and Creative Industries, said: “We will be making a series of recommendations about future research and innovation collaborations between India and the UK, which we hope will lead to a programme of investment.

“We have a fantastic team, made up of UK and India-based researchers. It’s very collaborative with researchers based at Loughborough, Glasgow, Jindal, and Shiv Nadar Universities.

“We’re delighted to have been awarded this funding, to help build an understanding of such an important set of sectors in India.”