MA Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship

Course information

Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship

1 year full-time or 2 years part-time

Course overview

The MA Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship should be attractive if you either wish to develop a business arising from an existing creative practice or to understand how to create the infrastructure and environment for new creative businesses.

This programme offers a number of pathways:

It's an ideal Masters if you want to develop a business in one of these fields, or in new areas of the creative industries. All students bring a business idea to the programme to use as a live case study.

The Masters is taught in partnership by a number of departments within Goldsmiths and with key individuals and organisations in the creative and cultural industries sector.

Our collective approach is to integrate entrepreneurship within the development of creative practices and to take a ‘creative’ approach to the development of new businesses and the infrastructure that supports them.

This programme is designed to allow you to continue to innovate, but also to provide the requisite business/entrepreneurial skills and attributes to commercialise your creative and cultural practices and/or knowledge.

You’ll be able to build on a historical and theoretical understanding of cultural and creative industries and the development of a cultural economy to create your own creative initiatives, which might be research-based, policy-based, practice-based, or a combination of any or all of these. Through the programme you will develop techniques to move your creative and critical thinking to entrepreneurial thinking.

This programme has an exit route at Postgraduate Diploma level.

Contact the department

If you have specific questions about the degree, contact ICCE Administrator

What you'll study

The programme contains four taught modules and a further dissertation/portfolio component.

You'll have a range of choices throughout the degree enabling you to design a pathway that is most relevant to your academic, business and career ambitions.

All students take modules I and III, and you can choose between options offered for your chosen pathway for modules II and IV.

Attendance is mandatory for all taught sections of the programme. To encourage collaborative learning we try to teach all students together wherever possible, irrespective of their particular pathway.

	Module title	Credits
	Theories of Capital Theories of Capital 30 credits Theories of Capital critically examines key theories of social, economic, cultural and symbolic capital. The module details these conceptual capital frameworks and compliments this theoretical foundation with application in the creative and cultural industries with a focus on government policy and the unique economic characteristics of the creative industries. For example consumer consumption of status goods will be assessed using theories of symbolic and social capital. Emphasis will be given on the role of intellectual capital in policy. Students will learn the analytical rigour to critically assess creative and cultural industry policy and market structures. Students will be able to translate theory into practice, and practice into theory.	30 credits
	Module II: Creative Practice Module II: Creative Practice 30 credits Please visit the following links, depending on your course of study, to see respective options for this module. Please note all options are subject to change depending on availability and modules taught. Computing Design Media and Communications Music Theatre and Performance	30 credits
	Module III: Entrepreneurial Modelling Module III: Entrepreneurial Modelling 30 credits This module aims to nurture your skills and attitudes to allow you to become an innovator and to provide models of entrepreneurial/business support relevant and useful for creative entrepreneurs. This module will provide a link between the theoretical aspects of the broader overview of the sector and the practice specifics, and work to focus on how creativity can be strengthened when put through creative commercialisation modelling techniques. The module has evolved from NESTA’s Creative Pioneer Programme and will use the Modelling Techniques that were designed and have evolved from `The Academy’ and `Insight Out’ which provide approaches to commercialising creativity. It will critically review the key characteristics of successful enterprises, entrepreneurs and leaders, within the cultural and more commercially focussed creative industries. It will look at the range of business models that exist and review how best to build a financially sustainable organisation. The key areas of modelling techniques covered are: Relationship Modelling – this will assist you to understand the range of business models in the creative industries, and to create the most appropriate route to market; it will consider the relationship that the originator of the creative idea has to the production, distribution and the audience/customer/client; it uncovers your relationship to “reward”. Evidence Modelling – this model uses Marshall McLuhan’s Tetrad Model to review the likely impact of the idea; it helps make the enterprise tangible and to ensure that the entrepreneur remains in control of the effects of their ideas. Using the modelling technique helps you to articulate your values and the benefits of your ideas. Blueprint Modelling – an approach to creating an operating plan, which will move your idea to market, articulating all of the activities and responsibilities required. Consequence Modelling – using all of the knowledge from the modelling techniques, this will uncover the financial consequences of the decisions made. It will introduce you to basic financial modelling concepts, and ensure they are comfortable with the financial language of creative entrepreneurs.	30 credits

Module IV: Entrepreneurial Practices and Modes of Production

Either: Assigned pathway module

Delivered by the partner departments – these modules deal with creative sector issues and case studies within a specific discipline. Please see the relevant MA Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship pathway page on the website for more information on options given for this module.

OR Work Placement

You will undertake a work placement within an SME, Producing or Research Organisation within the cultural and creative industries. There will be initial taught/tutorial sessions on managing an internship and experiential learning and assessment would be by an analytical report on the ‘culture of management’ of the organisation. In some pathways this will be augmented by classes in specific skill areas (such as marketing) as you are likely to be working in skill-specific departments of organisations.

Module V: Dissertation or Project/Portfolio

The content and research imperatives of the dissertation/portfolio can be developed in tutorials with staff to address your individual needs. It could range from an entirely written document researching a particular area of the cultural and creative industries to a fully developed proposal for a new business.

Download the programme specification for the 2018-19 intake. If you would like an earlier version of the programme specification, please contact the Quality Office.

Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.

Entry requirements

You should have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class standard in a relevant/related subject. There may also be pathway-specific entry requirements.

You might also be considered for some programmes if you aren’t a graduate or your degree is in an unrelated field, but have relevant experience and can show that you have the ability to work at postgraduate level.

You should have an idea for a business, or already be self-employed or have your own business.

International qualifications

We accept a wide range of international qualifications. Find out more about the qualifications we accept from around the world.

If English isn’t your first language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification) of 6.5 with a 6.5 in writing and no element lower than 6.0 to study this programme. If you need assistance with your English language, we offer a range of courses that can help prepare you for postgraduate-level study.

Fees, funding & scholarships

Find out more about tuition fees.

Find out more about funding opportunities for home/EU applicants, or funding for international applicants. If you're applying for funding, you may be subject to an application deadline.

How to apply

Apply now

You apply directly to Goldsmiths using our online application system. When applying, please specify your preferred pathway:

Computing
Design
Fashion
Media & Communications
Music
Theatre & Performance

You must demonstrate in your written application and in interview that you have capacity and capability for, and an understanding of creative and cultural entrepreneurship, and that you are able to meet the intellectual demands of the programme.

Before submitting your application you’ll need to have:

Details of your education history, including the dates of all exams/assessments
The email address of your referee who we can request a reference from, or alternatively an electronic copy of your academic reference
A personal statement – this can either be uploaded as a Word Document or PDF, or completed online

Please see our guidance on writing a postgraduate statement

If available, an electronic copy of your educational transcript (this is particularly important if you have studied outside of the UK, but isn’t mandatory)

You'll be able to save your progress at any point and return to your application by logging in using your username/email and password.

When to apply

We accept applications from October until 1 June for students wanting to start the following September.

We encourage you to complete your application as early as possible, even if you haven't finished your current programme of study. It's very common to be offered a place that is conditional on you achieving a particular qualification.

Late applications will only be considered if there are spaces available.

If you're applying for funding, you may be subject to an earlier application deadline.

Selection process

Admission to many programmes is by interview, unless you live outside the UK. Occasionally, we'll make candidates an offer of a place on the basis of their application and qualifications alone.

Find out more about applying.

Careers

Skills

You can expect to develop an independence and integrity in developing creative ideas. You will be able to apply entrepreneurial approaches to creative projects and demonstrate an understanding of different business models to establish a creative enterprise. You will also develop team-working and leadership skills, and effective business and communication skills.

Careers

The programme will enable those who have previously studied an area of creative study/practice, such as music, media, theatre and performance, design, or computer games, to start a career developing a business arising from an existing or new creative practice.

This may relate directly to a 'product' or 'process' arising from you own practice or to a form of 'expertise', 'consultancy' or 'knowledge'. The programme will also equip those who wish to work within organisations that develop the infrastructure and environment for new creative businesses with the capacity to flourish in a variety of contexts.

Find out more about employability at Goldsmiths.

What our students say

Lucia Davenport

"It’s one of the most fulfilling things I have done and a lot of the research from my MA CCE project has flown back into my work for TEDx."

Whilst doing her MA with ICCE Lucia developed a business plan for live streaming live events which she was able to implement whilst working with TEDxVancovuer as Live Stream lead.

Lucia is now a board member with TEDxVancouver and works for a corporate law firm in Toronto as Business Development Coordinator where she also creates live streaming concepts for thought leadership seminars.

Dan Goran

"The ICCE Department equipped me with the business understanding that made me stand out from other candidates throughout my early career."

Life at Goldsmiths was full of memorable experiences that helped shape me as an individual and professional. Besides the curriculum, I also learnt things about myself, especially that I want to be an entrepreneur one day and then for the rest of my life.

Currently, I work at Hotels.com under Expedia Inc. - the best UK workplace two years running, according to Glassdoor. The ICCE Department equipped me with the business understanding that made me stand out from other candidates throughout my early career. My job combines tech & travel, two of the things I love most, and I’m gaining more skills and experience which will help me when I have my own business.

Goldsmiths is a great community that will help you adapt to life in the big city and make you feel like a true Londoner with time. The diversity and inclusiveness here are second to none, enabling students to see multiple perspectives and broaden their horizons. The tutors’ support and dedication are fantastic, so don’t hesitate to ask for help. It can be an invaluable resource.

To sum up, I believe that some of the most important things I left from Goldsmiths with are to be confident in my thinking and to nourish my creativity. So if you’re reading this unsure of what to do, know that I would do it again.

Jeremy Young

"The classroom is embedded into your life as a creative worker, not the other way around."

I enrolled in Goldsmiths in 2012 because I had an idea, a seedling, for a business that I wanted to create. But I was scared, lacked confidence, and felt lost at sea in terms of where to start. The story was there, but I wasn't really sure how everything was going to come together. Over the course of my MA, aside from learning how to overcome that lack of self-confidence, learning to embrace risk and uncertainty and turn it into opportunity, and acquiring the necessary tools to start a business without a tried and trusted model out there, what I realized inevitably was that "I" am how it all comes together. I don't think this is something that's really teachable in a typical classroom, it takes immersion into one's field, collaboration and a pair of bootstraps, to learn that what comes from so deep within that it belongs only to you is the strongest asset an entrepreneur can bring into a creative enterprise. And honestly, that's something that I find to be unique to Goldsmiths as an education institution. The classroom is embedded into your life as a creative worker, not the other way around.

Whether you're a brick and mortar with 500 years of capitalist history to support your business model, or a pioneering new form of commerce that doesn't exist yet, I think in this new, shapeless and experientially-biased economy, one of the most important lessons an entrepreneur can learn is to follow their gut. Don't sell toilet paper, and don't try to sell me "smart" bluetooth toilet paper, sell me toilet paper that reflects where you came from, what your values are, and that supports an overlooked global community with whom you've personally spent time. Remember that people invest in people, people support people, and people inspire people. Your business is only as valuable as your ability to communicate your passion and personality through it.

I used to think I needed to learn how to build a thing, I had to learn that it's better to know how to break it.

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MA Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship

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