Patrick Towell

As Director of Creative Economy, he heads up policy and strategy design – and research to inform it – for culture particularly around enterprise, creativity as a driver of innovation and overlaps between creative/cultural sector and other policy areas, such as environment and health. He oversees the organisation’s independent research agenda.

He is Co-Director of the project [link to our news article] to scope out a UK National Cultural Data Observatory with the Centre for Cultural Value at the University of Leeds. He is advisor to the project designing the framework of capital assets, services, benefits and social value for the development and appraisal of policy that impacts UK culture or heritage.

He co-led the development of Creative Places guidance from England’s Local Government Association on how to design policy for local creative economies; What is Resilience Anyway? study – the basis of Arts Council England’s Dynamism Investment Principle; the government-sponsored digital maturity model underpinning our work on digital transformation; and futures studies on the impact of data-driven innovation and co-design with customers on the creative industries and financial services.

He has collaborated with and mentored the leaders of a variety of creative, technology and cultural enterprises. An experienced facilitator and trainer, he has co-led and co-designed leadership development programmes for creative and cultural leaders. He has raised venture and innovation finance from UK and EU public funds as well as private investors and R&D tax credits.

He has worked with everything from national organisations to microenterprises, local authorities to central government. As an Arts Council England Financial & Business Advisor and Arts Council Wales Resilience Advisor, he he worked directly with organisations to support change particularly regarding business models and innovation – as well as reviewing applications for funding.

Formerly Information Society Working Group chair for the UK’s National Commission for UNESCO and Marketing Chair for the International Standards committee for e-learning, he is global policy research fellow of the Institute of Technology and Society, the digital thinktank for the Global South. He lives and works in Brasil, speaks internationally and writes on innovation, design, enterprise and resilience.