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Media enterprise in higher education: a laboratory for learning

As an early career researcher, this work emerges from two core areas of study; firstly my PhD research into cultural entrepreneurship and secondly, enterprise teaching and pedagogies for media students. Its themes are informed too by my own background as a cultural worker, having run a creative design business for 10 years.

My PhD (part-time) at the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies at the University of Warwick explores the social contexts of cultural entrepreneurship, engaging with the nature of entrepreneurial work and dispositions within a Bourdieusian framework. Empirical research explores strategies for self-identification and personal agency, illuminating the complexities of entrepreneurship through the lived experience of cultural workers with examples from amongst those based in the city of Birmingham, UK. PhD research themes and research for this article were further explored through teaching on the MA Media and Creative Enterprise and in my leadership role in the wider PG environment in BCMCR, working in particular with students to raise critical questions about the nature of cultural entrepreneurship and their practice.

This work builds also on an earlier article co-authored with Charlotte Carey of BCU, Enterprise Curriculum for Creative Industries Students (2006), and on themes developed in various conference presentations. Having organised four conferences on the subject of Creative Enterprise since 2007, I have developed some expertise on the subject as it applies to higher education, the creative industries sector and cultural policy makers. The opportunity to lead the curriculum development aspect of a European funded Interreg project, ECCE, for three years has broadened my understanding of and contribution to innovation and enterprise within the creative industries.