Who cares for creative and cultural workers? The role of intermediaries in Europe’s creative economy

ABSTRACT

Who cares for cultural and creative workers (CCWs)? This paper considers the impact of a declined welfare support system across European states on CCWs and investigates the role played by creative intermediaries in providing care for those employed within the sector. Building on both quantitative and qualitative data taken from a range of European creative intermediary organisations, the paper applies Joan Tronto’s politicised framework of care to articulate how work undertaken by intermediaries can be understood as a form of care work. The findings highlight the range of creative intermediaries working to support CCWs across Europe and illustrates their role in conducting research on the sector in response to the lack of available robust data at a more official governance level. It explores how these organisations are filling both a welfare and knowledge gap however, that this support is ad hoc, supported by various funding models which place the intermediary organisations themselves in a precarious position. In response to this, the paper calls for investment in collaborations between higher education, policy makers and creative intermediaries to strengthen support for CCWs.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative intermediaries
• creative work
• cultural policy
• sustainability
• good work‌
• care

Introduction

Who cares for the needs of cultural and creative workers (CCWs) in the modern creative economy? The twenty-first century has witnessed significant changes in labour, with the impact of economic deregulation and digitisation leading to an increasingly dominant model of individualised, atypical working patterns (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2017; Murgia, 2014). The creative economy has been recognised as one of the leading drivers of this shift (Deuze, 2007). The neoliberal turn and decline of the welfare state saw a decline in collective forms of solidarity (Morgan & Pulignano, 2020; Tirapani & Willmott, 2023). Traditional labour welfare organisations such as trade unions went through a period of intense deregulation and subsequent decline in the 1980s and 1990s across the Global North (Horowitz, 2021; Pernicka, 2006) a pattern replicated within the creative sector (Antcliff, 2005). What has been lost in this shift from fixed employment regimes to an independent project-based labour model is a structure of welfare support and care for workers’ wellbeing. Workplace rights related to working time, access to appropriate sick pay, holiday leave, care-leave, fair dismissal, attributes which have developed through a history of collective action and bargaining from labour movements, have not crossed over to the independent and flexible model of atypical work common in the creative economy. This has led to a growing interest from labour scholars focused on cultural and creative work in how an absence of a safety net, or models of care for workers’ rights has impacted those occupied within these professions (Dent et al., 2020).

There are multiple definitions for measuring creative and cultural occupations across nation states and this contributes to the complexity of both understanding and comparing creative labour markets (Nathan et al., 2015). The definition applied by the European Union (developed for the European Statistical System Network on Culture, ESSnet-Culture) includes all individuals working in a culture-related economic activity regardless their occupation, as well as all individuals with a culture-related occupation whatever the economic activity they are employed in, capturing the range of sectors and jobs, but not their atypical, project-based nature (McRobbie, 2015). Indeed, official classification and measuring of cultural and creative labour tends to celebrate the economic value of these sectors and mask the structures that underwrite this success (Dent et al., 2020). Much has been written over the past twenty years on the impact of atypical working patterns and precarious work within the creative economy, evidence which demonstrates multiple inequalities that operate to exclude many from its workforce (Dent, 2020; Friedman et al., 2017). Connected to the issues of exclusion, is an awareness of the absence of care and support for precariously employed cultural and creative workers (Murgia, 2014). Alongside the work on precarious labour, there has been an observed political narrative of the creative economy as a “resilient” economic success story, particularly following the post-2008 global financial crisis (Filion, 2013). What is missing from the growing interest on cultural and creative work, as Jakob and Van Heur (2015) argue, are investigations into the overarching management structure of the creative economy and the various stakeholders that contribute to its productivity.

This paper responds to a question posed in Jakob and Van Heur’s special issue on “cultural intermediaries” in relation to the role they play within “creative economy narratives” (2015, p. 357). The data that informs our discussion is taken from a pan-European survey, conducted in Autumn 2020, of “creative intermediary” organisations. These have been defined as a range of institutions/organisations including “arts and cultural councils, policy networks, economic development agencies, foundations and unions to artists collectives, cultural centres, creative industries incubators, festivals and tradeshows” (Jakob & Van Heur, 2015, p. 357). The survey was initially designed to understand the range of data and knowledge held by such organisations following the global realisation of a lack of knowledge on CCWs welfare as exposed by the Covid-19 (C-19) pandemic. The impact of the C-19 lockdown on the creative economy has already received much critical attention (Comunian & England, 2020; Tanghetti et al., 2022) however, in this project we were interested in how creative intermediary organisations support CCWs and what knowledge they hold on their working conditions and needs. A multitude of surveys launched throughout 2020 (PEC, 2020) on the impact of C-19 on CCWs revealed a critical need to collect data on this highly dispersed and variable workforce to understand the impact of the global “shutdown” on their livelihoods. Thus, we hypothesised that the knowledge held by this growing body of creative intermediaries provided granular evidence on the working lives of practitioners within the creative economy during this period.

The reference to care in this paper’s title illustrates the analytical framework that underpins our research. We are interested in what these organisations cared about and why they conduct their own research. Survey responses were analysed thematically (Braun & Clarke, 2006) in accordance with Tronto’s (1998, 2013) four phases of care – attentiveness, responsibility, competence and responsiveness. A series of follow-up interviews were conducted with representatives from eleven of the surveyed organisations to further explore both the knowledge such organisations held on the workforce and how they were using that information (see Appendix). The paper argues that creative intermediary organisations provide vital welfare and labour participation support for Europe’s CCWs across a range of needs including access to suitable and safe space, training and career development, support with wage-bargaining and legal advice for unfair dismissal. Our findings evidence how these organisations conduct their own research agenda in response to the lack of available robust data at more official local / national / international governance level. Thus, creative intermediary organisations are filling both a welfare and knowledge gap that has emerged in response to the lack of care offered from both governments and employers. However, the results revealed that this support was ad hoc across the continent, with various funding models which placed the intermediary organisations themselves in a precarious position with little recognition of their value by larger industry institutions.

Literature review

Visible and Invisible CCWs

Growing scholarly interest on experiences of CCWs from a labour-market perspective recognises that workers in these sectors of the economy face issues of exclusion (Conor et al., 2015; Oakley & O’Brien, 2016), unequal pay and career progression (Dent, 2020; Friedman et al., 2017) as well as basic social security rights (Brook et al., 2020). Moments of crisis like the global financial crisis in 2008 have made visible the structural issues and inequalities in the sector, (Comunian & Conor, 2017), further exacerbated by the C-19 pandemic, with disproportionate impacts on the employment and well-being of CCWs (Comunian & England, 2020; Wreyford, Kennedy, et al., 2021).

This increasing visibility of the issues connected to creative labour markets has led to acts of resistance from the workforce itself, such as public protests where workers have manifested their discontent (de Peuter & Cohen, 2015; Tanghetti et al., 2022) and through emerging models of collective action, organisation and activism (d’Ovidio & Rodríguez Morató, 2017). This period of mobilisation and politicisation follows decades of inactivity. Despite waves of unionism and collective action taking place across old media employment sectors such as film and television in the 1970s resulting in structural reform in established institutions (Antcliff, 2005; Galt, 2020), the 1990s saw a vast expansion of the creative economy with opportunities for new forms of work in the growing information technology and new media sectors. This period of increased expansion and casualisation of the labour market led to decreased participation in collective action and union membership, a phenomenon experienced across Europe (Franzini & Lucciarini, 2022; Pernicka, 2006). As we emerge from a major crisis on creative employment, coupled with knowledge of a nascent resistance to neoliberal working cultures, it is timely to ask “who cares”, using care as a framework to reflect on formal and informal structures that engage with work and labour conditions but also equal access to careers and opportunities in CCIs.

Advocates, intermediaries and ecologies … who cares?

CCWs should not be studied in isolation but as part of local, regional and national ecologies that rely on a range of interdependent actors, organisations and spaces that together create an ecosystem which enables creativity to flourish (de Bernard et al., 2021; Wilson et al., 2019). Within these broader ecologies, it is not always clear who takes responsibility in establishing networks, support platforms for the needs of CCWs to be represented. This is partially due to the informal structures connected to precarious contracts (McGuigan, 2010) but also the strong overlap between professional and social networks (Comunian et al., 2020).

Within any regional ecology, there are a range of diverse players taking different roles in supporting, promoting and protecting CCWs that need to be explored further. Jakob and Van Heur (2015) would class some of these organisations as providing an intermediary role that facilitates the workers’ capability to work. Comunian et al. (2021) highlight that, beyond the traditional cultural intermediation role that has been extensively investigated (Bourdieu, 1984; Maguire, 2014), there is a growing diversity of forms of intermediation which is more interested in interventions on the conditions, frameworks and opportunities that shape and enable creation. They argue that a shift has taken place between “cultural intermediaries” towards “creative intermediaries” with the latter concerned with support for cultural and creative producers rather that the content produced (p. 112). This work demonstrates such intermediaries pivotal role in fostering access to creative work. However, there is little investigation on the value of this form of work (with notable exceptions see Wreyford, Dent, & O'Brien, 2021) and limited understanding of how they fit within broader local, regional and national ecologies, including connecting with policy, funding and other normative structures.

Beyond the creative economy: practices of care and solidarity

Beck and Brook (2020) highlight how, since the 2008 global financial crisis, the changes in the Global North around work-based de-regulation, necessitate research that considers the operation of solidarity within individualised labour markets. According to their discussion, the concept of solidarity is variable and is used liberally within and outside the academy to describe a wide range of individual and collective acts in a myriad of social contexts, not just in and through the experience of work (p. 5). As Bolton and Laaser (2013) argue, a moral economy approach offers a powerful way to think about workers’ lay morality that stresses their “moral agency and fellow-feeling” (p. 520). Solidarity is understood as an active expression of a commonly held moral economy, built from a shared sense of injustice and emancipatory purpose. The growing body of empirical evidence illustrates how the multiple barriers and inequalities that operate within the creative economy, particularly in relation to unfair employment opportunities and geo-political barriers has led to a cognisant escalation of injustice. A number of issue-led groups, collectives, and solidarity networks have emerged in response to workforce precarity. de Peuter and Cohen’s work on the emerging labour politics of the creative industries documents instances of resistance to labour conditions from workers across North America and Europe (2015). Part of these models of resistance connect to “new mutualism” (Horowitz, 2021), a term that relates to models of mutual aid and collective support mechanisms that have emerged to counter the impact of neoliberal, individualised precarity. Co-working spaces, online support networks, working co-operatives have all emerged as spaces that create the opportunity for mutual aid to occur and many of these spaces are governed and managed by creative intermediary organisations.

Within this broader understanding of solidarity and care, it is important to reflect on the expanding social agendas within the creative economy. Comunian et al. (2020) identify that within the academic literature, specifically following the global financial crisis, there is a growing interest in expanding the boundaries of the creative economy towards the social. This connects with current knowledge on creative intermediaries as their work, while essential to the creative economy, is often framed within models of social financing, public goods or not for profit business models. Expanding further, intermediaries emerge in the literature as nodes and brokers within creative and cultural ecologies (de Bernard et al., 2021) which stretch the framework and value systems of creative work beyond industry or economy to embrace a broader social and ecological perspective of the sector.

Methodology

The research undertaken for this paper builds on an EU-funded research project titled 'Developing Inclusive and sustainable Creative Economies' (DISCE) which had an objective to explore working conditions and employment patterns across different city-based creative economies in Europe (Gross et al., 2020). During the research process, we noticed tensions between official labour monitoring of CCWs and the scholarly work on precarious labour. At the European macro-level, we found that the broad trends of employment models across the CCIs do not articulate granular working conditions or support infrastructures available to CCWs (Dent et al., 2020). Similarly, at the national level, although there was more detail in the data available, we found very little concern or reflection on working conditions (ibid). However, as we explored different data sources on CCWs, a range of studies were identified including reports undertaken by creative intermediaries; from informal groups, to sector organisation, to trade unions to hubs trying to fill the gaps in between academic knowledge and broad policy framework and data. These different studies prompted us to consider who cares for creative and cultural workers and how is undertaking research a practice of care?

It was clear from the range of research available that there was a space in-between academia and policy addressing concerns that were closely reflecting some of the academic literature but produced much more as an agenda for change, aimed to engage with policy and action rather than simply knowledge development. In response to this, we developed a mixed-methods research project to understand: (1) who these intermediaries are, (2) why they care for CCWs, their motives and (3), what their care consists of or how it is articulated/put in practice. We conducted a European-wide survey directed at creative and cultural organisations conducted from April–July 2020. The invitation to take part, shared across social media and relevant networks and mailing lists across Europe, addressed organisations that had conducted independent research into the dynamics of creative and cultural work as well as the working conditions in the sector. The survey was translated into four languages (English, French, German and Italian) resulting in responses from 92 organisations across 26 European countries. Following the survey, we asked for respondents’ availability to take part in semi-structured qualitative interviews, to enable a deeper investigation into the support that is available for creative work and how that support is identified, managed and deployed across the sector. The organisations represented in the follow-up interviews (11 in total) had all participated in the survey and included responses from the UK (4), including Northern Ireland (NI), the Republic of Ireland (RoI) (1), Belgium (2), Italy (2), Greece (1) and Finland (1). Anonymity was offered to interview respondents; however, most participants were happy for their organisation to be named, highlighting both the transparency of their work objectives but also their need for impact and visibility. Many of the organisations were involved in supporting multiple sub-sectors of the creative economy (8) with two working specifically in the visual arts sectors and one with film and television.

In our analysis we applied Tronto’s framework whereby the social distribution of care is a key question of social justice (1998). Tronto characterises care as “a reaching out to something other than self […] lead[ing] to some type of action” (Tronto, 2013, p. 102) and identifies four phases of care, each aligned with a “moral quality” (2013, pp. 34–35). These phases are, firstly, Caring about – attentiveness, noticing unmet caring needs. Second, Caring for – responsibility, once needs are identified, the carer takes on the burden of meeting those needs. Third, Care giving – competence. Taking responsibility may well merge into the actual work of care, requiring the moral quality of competence (proficiency or skill). Fourth, Care receiving – responsiveness. Once care work is underway or completed, there will be a response from the person (group, animal, plant, environment, or thing) that has been cared for. Observing that response and making judgments about it requires the moral quality of responsiveness. Building on the situated, relational aspect of care, Tronto provides a framework that can be applied to all social relations. In this case, we use Tronto’s framework to consider the practices that these organisations use to pay attention, take responsibility, develop competencies and respond to the needs of CCWs.

In addition, this project represents an element of scholarly reflexivity. Within the broader sociological debate around the role of academics within solidarity and movements, we would like to position ourselves as scholar activists (Derickson & Routledge, 2015) or committed scholars, to use Bourdieu’s term (Brook & Darlington, 2013), that while aiming to maintain a critical distance, does acknowledge the importance of also giving voice and visibility to sites of struggle. Such situated solidarity by scholars of work can evolve into a deep, enmeshed practice, where the scholar activist becomes a Gramscian-style organic intellectual for a labour or social movement having won the trust of their co-activists to be an ally and/or strategist for the group or movement in which they participate (Brook & Darlington, 2013). Recognising the privilege of resources, time and opportunities given to scholars against intermediaries’ struggle for resources to collect data and support the sector, this research is also an opportunity to reflect on the need for academics to work more closely with organisations that care for CCWs to share knowledge, tools and agendas for the benefit of the sector.

Data analysis

The data collected presents a rich set of insights on the nature of creative intermediaries and their relation to CCWs across Europe. In this analysis, we focus specifically on five key dimensions: who are creative intermediaries, their activities and funding structures; their mission and care goals; their research and data collection activities; their priorities, in consideration of C-19 and beyond and finally, creative intermediaries' own struggle with precarity and sustainability.

Who cares? Survey respondents’ activities and funding structure

Our survey received 92 responses from a range of organisations. Twenty-six countries were represented, with the highest representation in the sample being Germany (n. 13); UK (n. 11); Italy (n. 8) and Spain (n. 7). The size of organisations¹ was variable, with 31% of the organisations having more than ten employees and 69% having less. The majority of organisations are involved with and relate to more than one CCI sector, with the most represented industries being Film, TV, video, radio and photography (n. 42); Performing arts (including theatre, dance and festivals) (n. 39); Visual arts (n. 34); Cultural education (n. 33); Music (n. 32); Writing (authors, journalists) (n. 25); Museums, galleries, libraries and archives (n. 24) and Cultural Heritage (n. 24).

The survey invited respondents to summarise the main activities that their organisation undertakes. Just under half, 46% of the respondents engage with activities concerning increased visibility and promotion of the sector; 45% provide training, courses and workshops for CCWs; 45% connect with policy through advocacy or lobbying; 38% undertake research; 27% offer coaching and advice for CCWs; 26% focus on partnerships and network development; 16% manage funding, scholarships, grants and 11% offer other practical support for CCWs which included activities such as residencies, or access to working/meeting space (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Main activities of the organisation surveyed.

One interesting finding was the range of funding models that supported these organisations, (Figure 2). 48% of the organisations surveyed received some form of public funding, the majority of which were based in mainland Europe as opposed to the UK (see discussion on precarity and sustainability below). Just under a third, 27% relied on earned income; 15% have received private grants and donations; 9% have contributions in kind including volunteering and crowdfunding and 11% use other sources. It is beyond the scope of this paper to consider the funding/business models of these organisations in detail and we recommend further investigation on this topic in future research.

Figure 2. Funding sources of the organisations surveyed.

Caring for what? Missions and organisational goals

As discussed, the survey invited respondents to briefly state the mission of their organisation and each response was analysed thematically in relation to Tronto’s ethical framework that considers care as an act of attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness (Tronto, 1998). Many organisations demonstrated their attentiveness in supporting and enabling CCWs with their work in order to develop the wider industry, for example, the Kreatives Sachsen (Creatives Saxony) organisation defined their purpose as,

We network, inform and support, accompany new ideas and open up perspectives for cooperation. We stand up for more visibility and appreciation of the industry and offer further training, network events and free advice in order to support the cultural and creative industries in Saxony productively and sustainably.

For others, attention was focused on the development of cultural policy (at a local/national and international level) to advocate for greater recognition and support for the sector:

Cupore’s mandate includes the production and dissemination of reliable information applicable to cultural policy decision making and the promotion of important research and expert opinion by way of research projects and training in the field.

As already discussed, there were a range of responding organisations from larger research centres, trade unions, to smaller issue based collectives or groups who had developed in direct response to a perceived barrier associated with creative/cultural work, such as the UK based Illuminatrix, a collective of UK based female cinematographers, the Brussels based Sociaal Fonds voor de Podiumkunsten whose purpose is to, “pay particular attention to groups who get fewer opportunities in the labour market”. The UK organisation Parents in Performing arts (PIPA), stated, “[our] vision is of a performing arts sector that is effectively inclusive of the parent and carer workforce” and the Felah Mengus Foundation based in Barcelona, which aims to “support exceptionally gifted Traditional Artists from the Roma/Gipsy/Gitanos communities of SE France & NE Spain.”

The organisation mission statements also evidenced aspects of responsibility. This was sometimes framed as a responsibility for supporting and advancing specific elements of the sector such as the Ekphrasis Studio NGO based in Albania, “[p]ositioned as a mediator, it supports development of arts management and creative industries, legal, economic, artistic and educational activities”. Again much of the work related to taking responsibility for the development of the sector was divided across both larger intermediary organisations such as cultural policy units or trade unions and also smaller collectives/changemakers such as the Raising Films organisation, a UK based collective who stated their mission is “to champion and support parents and carers in the UK screen industries” with another small UK network, the Producers’ Roundtable stating their mission to “create a more sustainable and diverse producing community”. Taking responsibility was also articulated in their role in creating networks/cooperation such the organisation Creative Denmark, who stated part of their purpose is to “facilitate relations between international stakeholders and [national] solutions and competencies” or around specific agendas, such as inclusion “to make filmmaking and animation accessible to all young people”.

For many the development of competencies was the main practice of care articulated in their mission/purpose. This happened more strongly through skills development with many organisations drawing from their own research to address skills gaps and needs articulated by both policymakers and CCWs within the broader ecology. Over half (56%) of the organisations that responded to the survey listed “Competence/skills development/training needs” as one of the research areas they collected data on. Many developed their own targeted training programmes and accreditation systems in order to meet the training and skills needs of the wider ecology, for example the Centre d'Estudis i Recursos Culturals in Barcelona, which stated its main objectives as, “cooperation with municipalities in the province of Barcelona, in all matters relating to training, information and advice on cultural policies and management” or the Young Irish Film Makers (YIFM) based in Kilkenny, the Republic of Ireland whose stated mission is, “to make filmmaking and animation accessible to all young people. Anyone aged between 9 to 25 years can take part in one of our practical training workshops in schools, youth clubs, summer camps and residential programmes.”

Finally, there was a clear agenda from the organisations to be responsive. This included taking action, either within their industry or at a policy level, through different means such as lobbying, signposting, education across a range of geographic scales, from the micro/local to a European-wide level. An important agenda of this responsiveness to needs was connected with improving artists’ working conditions. A Greek organisation (Sektor30) stated its purpose is “to provide artists with working space, studios, and facilities for the production of artworks”.

Researching is caring: data and research agenda

Both the survey and interviews demonstrated that conducting research was a structural part of their intermediary work as it informed how to care for the needs of CCWs and the broader creative ecology. All of the organisations collected some form of data (quantitative or qualitative) as a core part of their work remit: 93% of the organisations conducted quantitative surveys/questionnaires on the sector; 86% qualitative case studies from the sector; 84% conducted qualitative focus groups on specific topics; 82% conducted qualitative interviews with workers or employers; 80% collected quantitative feedback forms in relation to specific services provided and 53% quantitative information about their membership.

When asked about why this commitment to data collection was necessary, responses varied. 18% reported the lack of data as a motivation, 15% argued it was important to understand audience and needs. For 8% it was useful to evaluate programs/services and also for monitoring activity with 12% responding that it was also relevant for lobbying reasons and to inform policy. Depending on the focus of the organisation, data collection had different geographical remits. For many (75%) it was national, and 68% of respondents also included a regional dimension. The city-region was the focus of the work of 49%, the municipality for 44% and the neighbourhood/community for 30%. The multinational (36%) and European (34%) remits were also very significant.

The interviewees provided further clarification on the need for empirical research as a means to provide a detailed, grounded evidence-base behind the anecdotal conversations on the issues faced by CCWs. Screenwriter and representative of the UK union the Writers Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) spoke about the rationale to commission a major investigation into gender inequality across UK screenwriters:

It came about because of years of anecdotal data really, a pretty keen sense by a lot of women in the film and TV industry that there was an imbalance in terms of representation in the Writers’ Room. […] when it came to primetime women just weren’t being given the chance. But we needed data to back this up because you know when you approach commissioners or try to challenge production companies or agents etc they would say that ‘things were changing, there wasn’t a problem’. […]. So we knew that we needed data to kind of back up exactly what we were talking about and that was why that report was commissioned. (Interview 8).

The representative interviewed from Women in Film and Television, Finland spoke of the need to gather data to make a bigger impact, that this form of research was a form of “impact work”:

We were pushing a lot of decision-makers, a lot of funders to take action, and we also did a lot of, let’s say, seminars or panel discussions, where we just wanted to raise the issue, we wanted to do a lot of that awareness raising. But I think as it went on we have to go above and beyond, like we have to do more impact work. (Interview 5).

The interviews enabled us to delve deeper into the particular knowledge that these organisations were able to gather through their attentiveness and competencies linked to gathering data:

So we undertook our first survey in 2011/2012 and then published in 2013 […] the purpose of that was to find out what was the current status of artists’ incomes and their lifestyle. And it was the first time that we were able to use the statistic that the majority of artists living on the island of Ireland were living under the poverty threshold and we were able to statistically prove it. (Interview 11).

There was a sense that research was an important factor in ensuring the sustainability of the industry. One of the UK participants, who worked as a freelance screen producer, was part of a wider network of UK Producers who conducted a one-off survey to highlight a “generational” pay gap between emerging producers in the UK who were not able to develop their careers and a lack of understanding from funding gatekeepers:

Because we felt like we were constantly getting a really raw end of the deal, when we were making things and it was making the career choice very unsustainable and therefore quite inaccessible. […] you look up at the kind of producers who are very established […] it was like 85% of them were like white men who had gone to public school. (Interview 7).

It was clear that data collection was used as a means to attend to a need of the sector (or specific sub-groups within a sector). In the case of Visual Artists Ireland, they acknowledged a failure of the government to even recognise the existence of an “artist” as a professional in their taxation legislation and so their work provided a critical intervention in raising awareness of the existence of creative workers in some nation states:

Two years ago … . there was no definition of an artist in Irish law, […], but now because of work on advocacy with social welfare and social protection our definition of what is a professional artist is recognised by the government as the definition of a professional artist, which then opens a series of government supports to them. (Interview 11).

Following Tronto’s definition of care, these organisations' attentiveness to the needs of CCWs fosters responsiveness in terms of either political or industrial change.

Re-prioritising care: from Covid-19 to workers’ rights

As stated, this survey was conducted following the outbreak of the Covid-19 and subsequent global lockdown. We were interested in what knowledge these creative intermediary organisations had on CCWs prior to the pandemic, and what change they would like to see moving beyond Covid-19. It was clear from both the survey and interviews that, as highlighted by Comunian and England (2020), Covid-19 had re-focused the attention of creative intermediaries towards the basic needs and financial struggle of CCWs during the pandemic. One of the survey questions asked respondents about the policy changes the organisation would like to see taking place in their sector in relation to CCWs (see Table 1). The responses demonstrated a strong need for more financial support, followed by the need for clearer employment rights and regulations for CCWs (n. 49, 53% see it as urgently needed) and the urgency of more equal opportunities (in relation to gender, class or ethnicity) (n. 48, 52%).

Table 1. Survey responses on priorities for policy change.

	Urgently needed	Could be improved	Not needed / not a priority
Financial support for creative workers during Covid-19 pandemic	70%	26%	3.3%
Clearer employment rights and regulations for creative/cultural workers	53%	38%	8%
More equal opportunities (in relation to gender, class or ethnicity)	52%	35%	13%
More creative/cultural subjects and opportunities within education	40%	50%	10%
More transparency in relation to pay and working conditions	38%	50%	12%
Greater protection and rights for those with caring responsibilities (for children, families etc.)	37%	43%	20%
More geographical spread of creative and cultural work opportunities in my country	35%	42%	23%

The interviews provided an opportunity to further elaborate on the impact of Covid-19 at that particular moment in time (September-November 2020):

There’s nobody saying, whatever ‘they are whining’ or I don’t know ‘complaining’, ‘they’re not so necessary’. That is not the case. So I don’t know, in a lot of other sectors there is huge sympathy and they try to do whatever they can to support any artists or to support the sector on whatever it is possible. (Interview 3).

A respondent from Greece spoke of how the pandemic visibilised the need to start monitoring CCWs at an official level due to the lack of data,

We have a Minister for Culture, and for Contemporary Culture and for General Culture, but … we didn’t even have a register for the artists. [It was] only after the pandemic that the Minister of Culture created a register for all … like dancers, actors, movie directors, film directors, theatre directors, technicians etc. (Interview 6).

Impact varied across sector and genres with those from the performing and visual arts reporting a highly negative impact. As a respondent that represented Visual Artists based in Northern Ireland highlighted,

The SEISS² schemes only supported people who have generated more than 50% of their income from their artistic practice, and most artists here will support themselves with part-time work. […] A large proportion were in the hospitality industry, so they lost their artistic income, but they also lost their part-time work in the hospitality industry, so they really did fall through the cracks and they’ve had to resort to Universal Credit, which many kind of found really unsatisfactory. And yeah, so I mean it’s been traumatic for artists really. (Interview 10)

CCWs with caring responsibilities or underlying health issues were not sufficiently supported, reinforcing the argument that C-19 has exacerbated the inequalities in the sector (Comunian & England, 2020; Wreyford et al., 2021). This highlights that while C-19 moved the agenda of some of these intermediaries work on financial support for workers, major barriers and agendas linked to working conditions and equality remained and might now need to be put into the spotlight again as the immediate effects of the pandemic are easing and we consider the longer-term impact.

Creative intermediaries precarity and sustainability

Emerging from both the survey and interviews was the consideration that the labour of creative intermediaries was itself precarious and that the research they conducted was intermittent and subject to available funding. The survey demonstrated a geographical variation across the funding models of creative intermediaries in Europe with more organisations in Central Europe in receipt of national funding support with those based the UK, Eastern Europe and Greece more reliant on self-funding models. As we have illustrated, the work undertaken by these creative intermediaries provides grounded, empirical evidence that covers a variety of issues related to CCWs which hitherto, is not captured by official monitoring of the workforce.

As both the survey and interviews demonstrated, many who had undertaken this work did so for low or no pay either as part of a collective network or through a union position, and that the limitations of funding and/or time had an impact on the data they were able to gather,

It’s taken two and a half years of free work. We all agreed that there were lots more issues to tackle and we often still get messages from other producers being like ‘I’ve been screwed over on this thing’ or whatever … but we felt as a trio, given it was an unpaid, unstructured thing and all the work was coming down to us, that the name of the organisation and all of that could still be in place but if somebody else wanted to spearhead the next issue then that was fine. But no-one has risen to do it, they’ve said there are these issues, but I think realizing how much work there is, is off-putting. And equally we didn’t feel that we could get sucked into another two and a half years fighting for something else because it was just not sustainable. (Interview 7).

Thus, as the participants pointed out, the value of their knowledge was based on their situated position and closeness to the issues faced by CCWs but the labour that went into data gathering was not sustainable if they were working for free. There was also a noted awareness of the limitations of their data and the lack of capacity to explore it in detail,

That was always the idea that there would be a follow-up maybe 5 years after or something like that. And maybe at that point, if we had the funding for it that the next report would also take in ethnicity, which the gender report didn’t, that was only representation of women. There was a huge issue around ethnicity as well, but it was slightly more difficult to capture accurately at the level required with the resources and time at the time. (Interview 8)

Those in receipt of public funding responded to the needs of their funder and fulfilled specific roles in the wider political monitoring of the creative economy.

Very importantly we get funding, depending on how many full-time equivalents there are in our sector. So it’s already very important to monitor the funding stream. It’s also important to find out what the relationship is with the different type of companies within our sector, production companies, the rental companies […] And we are more and more looking at making that data a central part of our organisation, so it’s an ongoing process. (Interview 4).

Overall, these creative intermediaries felt a lot of pressure from either funders or the CCWs themselves to evidence and provide data but often worked in under-resourced conditions that made it impossible for them to have a clear impact or to continue to consistently push the agendas necessary to create change.

Discussion and conclusion

This paper has focused on the role played by creative intermediaries within the broader European cultural ecology in providing both knowledge and vital welfare support for CCWs. We have applied Tronto’s articulation of care as a political framework that demonstrates processes of attentiveness, responsibility, competency and responsiveness that are necessary for the development and sustainability of a thriving cultural ecology. We have highlighted specifically that the reduction in public funding for culture and creative activity which has taken place across Europe in the twenty-first century has led to a vacuum in welfare support which has had significant impact on CCWs.

Our findings, in line with Comunian et al. (2021), demonstrate the range of organisations involved in supporting and caring for the needs of CCWs, from large institutions to informal networks or small charities. Despite the diversity of structure and funding, many of their activities, goals and care practices are shared across sectors and geographical boundaries. One key aspect of their work was identified in the collection of data and undertaking of research on CCWs. Their work originates from the recognition that policy often lacks detailed knowledge on CCWs, as evidenced by the shock-impact of the C-19 lockdown and that broad statistical employment trends do not capture the nuanced granularity of employment in the creative economy. Despite the celebratory use of CCWs as drivers of economic development (Tanghetti et al., 2022), the lack of investment in understanding the sector and supporting its needs has been exposed. While the work of creative intermediaries tries to fill these gaps, much of the research undertaken is done so in an ad hoc manner, responding to a specific issue, question or need observed through anecdotal conversations but reliant on available funding and time. This makes the research undertaken by creative intermediaries precarious, built on capabilities such as goodwill which, as we demonstrate, are not sustainable.

The paper demonstrates the need to recognise and acknowledge the role creative intermediaries play both in reference to their advocacy, research and care work towards CCWs. They themselves take on a range of care work (Tronto, 2013) that is undervalued by both the public and private sphere who profit from the growth generated by creative labour. As our survey and follow up interviews demonstrate, not all these creative intermediary organisations receive public funding and it is important that their work – for example involvement in policy discussion – is paid a fair wage and that the research undertaken is valued. In relation to policy implications, we would like to reflect on academic interest on emerging forms of collectivism within the creative economy (de Peuter & Cohen 2015) and the importance of creating opportunities for higher education and other publicly funded research organisations to involve and collaborate with intermediaries to develop and sustain research on CCWs. As stated, we position ourselves as scholar-activists (Derickson & Routledge 2015)committed to developing transparent collaborative frameworks across multiple stakeholders that benefit CCW livelihoods.

Overall, the paper highlights how an ecological perspective (de Bernard et al., 2021) illustrates the interdependency and connectivity between individuals, organisations, spaces, regions and nations across the creative economy. It provides an alternative conceptualisation of work that contradicts individualised notions of entrepreneurialism and resilience that have previously dominated creative and cultural policy discourse. Within this ecology, creative intermediaries play a vital role and we recommed that both policy and academia build collaborative frameworks with creative intermediaries to foster research and support if they are interested in sustaining these ecologies.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to extend their gratitude to all the organisations that took part in this research project. They would also like to thank Dr Silvie Jacobie and Sylvie Guillaume Chatterton for their support in translating the survey questionnaire.

Additional information

Funding

The Developing Inclusive and Sustainable Creative Economies (DISCE) research project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 822314.

Notes

1 There were 86 responses to Q6 of our survey.

2 The UK Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) was introduced in 2020 to support self-employed individuals whose employment activities had been adversely affected by COVID-19. The scheme ran until September 2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/self-employment-income-support-scheme-screening-equality-impact-assessment/self-employment-income-support-scheme-seiss.

Appendix

Appendix – Interview organisations

Table

	Name of organisation	Website	Location
1	Tools for Culture	www.toolsforculture.org	Roma, Italy
2	Materahub	www.materahub.com	Matera, Italy
3	Sociaal Fonds voor de Podiumkunsten	www.podiumkunsten.be	Brussels, Belgium
4	Mediarte	www.mediarte.be	Brussels, Belgium
5	Women in Film & Television Finland	www.wift.fi	Helsinki, Finland
6	Giortes Rokkas	Giortes Rokkas | A celebration at our house	Crete, Greece
7	Producers Roundtable	www.ukproducersroundtable.com	London, UK
8	Writers' Guild of Great Britain	www.writersguild.org.uk	London, United Kingdom
9	Creative Network South	www.creativenetworksouth.co.uk	South Hampshire, UK
10	Visual Artists, Northern Ireland	https://visualartists.ie/ni-portal/	Belfast, Northern Ireland
11	Visual Artists Ireland	https://visualartists.ie	Dublin, Ireland