Professor Justin O'Connor

I have been involved as researcher, teacher and policy-advocate in the cultural/ creative industries since 1989 when I helped conduct one of the first ‘mapping’ exercises for the sector in the UK, for Greater Manchester. In 1996 I became Director of Manchester INstitute for Pupular Culture. I was actively involved in the promotion of the ‘cultural industries and urban regeneration’ agenda in Manchester, leading up to the establishment of the Creative Industries Development Service (CIDS) of which I was first chair. I was also involved in the development of the Northern Quarter and the 24 Hour City programme. In the wake of New Labour’s Creative Industries initiative, I set up Forum on Creative Industries (FOCI), a leading network of academics, consultants and policy makers, in the UK between 2001 and 2008. I advised a number of European city governments on cultural/ creative industries strategies–in Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Italy and Russia. The latter involved a four-year EU-funded partnership project between Manchester and St Petersburg.  

Since 2004 I became involved in East Asian creative industries and cities, in South Korea, Taiwan and especially China. I was visiting professor in the Department of Cultural Management at Shanghia Jiaotong University, 2014-2018. I have led one ARC Linkage on Creative Clusters in China and one ARC Discovery on creative careers in China and Australia. I co-edited a book on cultural industries in Shanghai with the Shanghai Academy of Social Science, and am about to submit a manuscript with Xin Gu (Monash University) Red Creative: Culture and Modernity in China (Routledge). 

As a member of UNESCO’s International ‘Expert Facility’ set up to promote the 2005 Convention on Diversity of Cultural Expressions I conducted missions in Mauritius and Samoa, working with the ministries of cultural to develop a cultural industries strategy. I have also been invited editor for the last two UNESCO Global Monitoring Reports. Building on my involvement in the UNESCO expert facility I have also convened a Global Cultural Economy Network, which brings together policy experts from all continents to discuss policy issues at a global level. In 2018 I was awarded an ARC Discovery on UNESCO and ther Making of Global Cultural Policy. In association with the UNESCO Secretariat and Shanghai Jiaotong University I will be organising the first of a series of UNESCO-Shanghai Jiaotong Global Cultural Management Forums in December 2019, Shanghai.

I have written reports for local city councils and for the Australia Council, on arts and creative industries. In Melbourne, I have been on the board of Renew Australia, promoting the use of empty spaces by creative enterprises. In 2016 I was commissioned to write a report on cultural economy for ACOLA’s Australia’s Comparative Advantage survey, and recently published a Platform Paper giving an assessment of the creative industries agenda since the 1994 Creative Nation. In 2017 I was commissioned by the Department of State Growth, Tasmania, to conduct a qualitative survey of the creative industries on that island. In 2018 I was commissioned to write a scoping piece on Creative Industries and Soft Power by DEFAT. I am currently part of an ARC Discovery Project on Culture and Manufacturing in Melbourne, Sydney, San Francisco, New York, Shenzen, Berlin and Milan.

At Manchester Metropolitan University’s Institute for Popular Culture I developed a four university joint masters in European Urban Cultures. Moving between Brussels, Tilburg, Manchester and Helsinki, where students were introduced to conceptual and pragmatic issues of culture and urban/ social regeneration. My involvement in the Northern Quarter, CIDS and the new museum of the city URBIS, all provided the basis of real world case study work. At the University of Leeds (2006-8) I developed a new Masters in Culture, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. At Monash University, School of Media, Film and Journalism, I set up a new Master of Cultural and Creative Industries, which had over 140 FTE studentsw when I left in 2018, mainly international. 

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy The University of Sussex