In recognition of the growing availability of data in key areas of policy, the PEC will introduce set piece UK-wide 'State of the Nation' reporting in each of four high-level priority thematic areas led by the four organisations that will make up the research consortium: 1. R&D, Innovation and Clusters (Sussex University); 2. Creative Education, Skills, Talent (Work Advance); 3. Internationalisation (Newcastle University), and 4. the Arts, Cultural & Heritage sectors (University of Sheffield) respectively. These reports will be specified in consultation with industry and policymakers, launched at regular biannual frequencies drawing on the RSA's events capacity and scheduled well in advance to facilitate planned engagement activities. We envisage the reports to include systematic tabular and chart-based sections on official and other publicly available economic and relevant social indicators as well as deep dives on issues of topical interest where more analysis is needed. The four thematic priority areas for regular reporting are partly informed by the need to avoid duplication of work covered within existing UK centres of excellence, such as the CREATe research centre at Glasgow University which specialises in intellectual property, regulation and competition issues, and areas like public sector broadcasting (PSB) where regular reporting is already available, such as through the media and communications reports from Ofcom. However, the PEC will still conduct primary research in such areas where important gaps in the evidence base are identified. As well as drawing on official and open data sources, the State of the Nation reports will extract insights from a new flagship longitudinal business panel that the PEC proposes to develop. This will involve collecting survey data from a panel of UK-based creative industries firms and firms in selected comparator sectors. In addition to the analytical deep dives in the State of the Nation reports, we intend that the PEC will make important original research contributions to the evidence base including from a large, multi-disciplinary network of PEC Research Fellows recruited from UK and overseas academic and private sector institutions. Fellows will be encouraged to bid for targeted calls for (co-)commissioned research. As well as being made aware of PEC research calls, the benefits of being a PEC Research Fellow will include: professional recognition and visibility; access to other PEC Research Fellows; the chance to shape the PEC's thematic priorities; opportunities to participate in policymaker engagement activities; opportunities to peer review PEC work, and invitations to present at PEC seminars and conferences. We will also fund a limited number of time-limited 'Small Networks' grants, focused on bringing together a group of PEC Research Fellows to interrogate a particular policy-relevant research area, promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing. The PEC's website will also serve as a platform for excellent policy-relevant research undertaken outside of the PEC. This will take the form of blogs, podcasts and Discussion Papers. We will also use our virtual and in-person events to bring to policymakers' attention important contributions from the wider academic literature in the UK and beyond. What differentiates the Creative Industries PEC from other policy-focused research centres is our embedded approach to knowledge exchange. That is, we embed PEC researchers and our Policy Unit personnel as much as possible in the policy planning, design and delivery processes of our key stakeholders. This embeddedness will continue to be a defining feature of our work: it will unlock the opportunity to help more researchers become more policy-literate, and to support policymakers to become more adept at using data and research evidence.

The SEED fellowship focuses on scoping and developing a new UK-China creative industries research and innovation hub through scoping sectors, engaging stakeholders, empowering participants, and developing future-focused visions and strategies. This supports the AHRCs long-standing ambition to bring together China-UK creative industry stakeholders to develop research-industry partnerships for long term collaboration. Through a programme of scoping studies including research, workshops and creative activities the fellowship aims to understand the needs of, barriers to, and opportunities for creative industry practitioners and researchers to develop cross-cultural and collaborative projects between the UK and China. This will enable us to develop a strategic vision and an evidence-informed delivery plan for the UK-China creative industries research and innovation (R&I) hub to be launched in 2024. We aim to strengthen existing partnerships and expand new R&I partnerships for the scaling up of sustained collaboration between the UK and China over the next 5-15 years. Our engagement activities will build a community of businesses, academics and industry members that are well trained and supported to enable them to build successful working relationships. The activities of the fellowship will build the foundations of a centre of excellence for creative debate, knowledge sharing, training, facilitating partnerships and accessing expertise that can be further strengthened through the future Hub's activities. Unique to this fellowship is the Empower programme which will provide seed funding for UK-China projects that produce creative outputs, generate productive connections and test the effectiveness of the resources being produced by the fellowship team. Through the development of resources, including a toolkit, we will support cross-cultural collaboration which will be showcased through mixed-media content on social media platforms and our website. The model for this fellowship draws together expertise from across the breadth of the creative industries - in academia, business, policy and skills training from both the UK and China - in working groups, an Advisory Board and partnerships to ensure diverse needs and requirements are captured and embedded in the plan of the hub. The fellowship will facilitate the launch and implementation of the hub in 2024. The research, sector knowledge and liaison with the research and innovation community are all focussed on developing a strong future UK-based Hub to support the work of the China-based Hub. The future Hub will be well equipped and fully resourced to act as a docking station for accessing knowledge and expertise; a centre of excellence for training creative entrepreneurs with cultural sensitivity; a club for intelligence gathering, creative debate and showcasing to the Hub's community and the general public, an accelerator for business research, innovation and growth, as well as business to business engagement; a facilitator of collaborative and interdisciplinary research partnerships; and a platform to create the conditions for sustained and productive partnerships between the creative industries in the UK and China.