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• Crafting Capital: New technologies, new economies - Nov 2011

  Collaboration accelerates innovation: by working together, people with different but complementary expertise can challenge conventional thinking and find unexpected new directions in their work.

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• Craft and Rural Development - June 2011

  Craft is said to be one of the key drivers of the future creative rural economy, key to the £500m contributed each year by creative professionals to the rural economy of England. In this briefing note, we explore this assertion in detail, investigating the economic contribution made by craft to a diverse and evolving rural England.

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• Craft & the Digital World - May 2011

  A passion for working with materials and processes is fundamental to craft. Makers – quick to explore, transform and create new materials and processes – are early adopters in the material world: studio glass furnaces, knitting machines, paper clay and the new sustainable composite materials profiled here, are all part of an ongoing tradition of maker-led innovation.

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• Craft and Wellbeing - March 2011

  Happiness remains high on the political agenda, as the UK government sets out to determine and measure the nation’s wellbeing, as a basis for future policy making. Both ethical and practical considerations around this politicization of happiness continue to be debated, but in the meantime new ways of thinking about and measuring wellbeing have been in development by academics and independent foundations and think tanks, as well as through the Office of National Statistics itself.

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• Craft & Environmental Sustainability - Nov 2010

  Craft has an essential role to play in building a more sustainable future, and in this briefing note we explore how makers are trailblazing the use of recycled and sustainably-sourced materials and pioneering new, low-impact alternatives.

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• Craft & Enterprise - March 2012

  Contemporary craft makers businesses are self-reliant and resilient, often producing work that enables growth in other sectors. In this briefing note, we explore craft makers’ potential contribution to enterprise and entrepreneurial agendas and investigate how craft businesses could – with the right support and brokerage - help to make a success of new investment and education programmes.

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• From Cell to System – Making Innovation Work - March 2012

  The following paper based on Crafting Capital was used as a discussion paper at the Council for Higher Education and Learning conference in March 2012

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• How Makers and Craft Organisations are Using Social Media

  In this report, we explore some of the key social media strategies and techniques being employed in the craft sector today. In particular, we look at how these strategies are helping to address challenges facing the sector: latent domestic and export market potential, the isolation faced by sole traders and an under-developed retail infrastructure amongst others.

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• Education Literature Review

  The literature review reports on the latest research into educational theories and methods – or pedagogies - specific to craft, accessing academic journals that inform the work of craft educators and agencies working in the craft education field. It reviews new research into the value of craft based learning, highlighting the positive impact working with materials and making in three dimensions is found to have on children’s cognitive development.

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• Craft and Higher Education

  In this briefing we examine how policy and funding developments over the past two years have influenced and continue to reshape the Higher Education craft landscape. Higher Education plays a crucial role in the craft sector infrastructure, providing facilities and fostering critical discourse and opportunities for creative collaboration.

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