Creative Universities and Their Creative City-Regions

Salford University led and coordinated a thematic network known as C5U, which involved a consortium of seven European universities. This was part of a European University Association (EUA)/Socrates programme of work known as ‘Creativity in Higher Education’. The aim was to understand how universities were increasingly seeking to be creative in their relationships with their cities and regions. The consortium identified how universities had contributed to, and benefited from, the creativity of their city-region for socially inclusive wealth creation. Success occurs when both the university and their partners have a high commitment to working together through creative leadership, and through the implementation of ‘virtuous knowledge sharing’ – a two-way, deep and iterative discussion, rather than the traditional one-way technology transfer typical in university reach-out. As a result of their deliberations, the C5U partners have suggested a new model for those engaged universities wishing to embrace their creative city-regions to the full – styled as ‘Universities for Modern Renaissance’. The characteristics of such universities are discussed in some detail in the paper.