Every day millions of citizens do something creative, from knitting and genealogy to photography and choirs. These creative citizens, some organised in groups and networks, some not, are the bedrock of the creative economy. As such, they underpin the intangible assets of the "knowledge economy" upon which the UK depends for its prosperity. At present, there is much that we do not know about our creative citizens. Why do they do what they do? What is the value of their creativity, to them as individuals and to their communities? How is their potential changed by the emergence of communications technologies which permit on-line social networking? Does inequality of digital access undermine this new creative citizenship? Are today's creative citizens capable of providing more local and flexible services, previously delivered by more remote public and private sector organisations? If their work is valued, what interventions and policies would facilitate their growth? This research seeks to answer these questions by examining three manifestations of creative citizenship: - hyperlocal publishing groups, writing neighbourhood news most often as a blog site have started to emerge in scores of communities around the UK, sometimes in response to the scaling back of traditional media; - community-led design, which is increasingly deployed as a means of ensuring that new buildings and other products reflect the needs, creativity and aspirations of the people who will use them; - creative practitioner communities, which take many forms: here we explore the value-creation that arises between relatively formal communities of this kind and the growing highly informal networks of individual creative citizens, many built around online communications platforms. Our aim in studying these cases is to generate data and insight about each case, but also to answer the more general questions set out above: what is the value of their work, to these citizens as individuals, to their communities and to wider civic goals? The background to our interest in creative citizenship arises from the way that on-line communications have enabled inviduals and small groups of individuals to engage more frequently, deftly and in greater depth with many types of organisation. Today, many companies design their products and services in close dialogue with users: this is routine for, say, video games developers, but it is also increasingly true of "smart" manufacturers of cars, toys and other consumer-focused industrial products, using Web2.0 technology. This shift from a "user pays" to a "user makes" approach supports the possibility of a growth in smaller-scale, more flexible and voluntary community services. Nesta, one of our partners in this project, has a laboratory for public service design based upon these principles. Glass-House Community Led Design, another partner, specialises in connecting designers and the widest possible range of stakeholders. The research will produce:- - improved data on the value, scale and potential of UK hyperlocal publishers and how they interact with traditional media; plus working with our partner (Talk About Local) sharp insights into the conditions likeliest to support the development of successful hyperlocals and the tools needed to achieve this; - understanding the value, potential and practicalities of community-led design, with a particular focus upon understanding the potential and limitations of digital media; - an evaluation of everyday, "at home" creative citizenship which provides an indication of its scale and potential, along with insight into the most effective ways of providing gateways between the work of these lone or loosely networked creative citizens and more formal organisations and structures. Our findings will be of value to policy-makers concerned with the development of the UK creative economy, along with strong communities of place and interest.