Dr Susan Ashley from Northumbria University advocates for multicultural ethnically diverse cultural organisations.

National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF) PhD studentships  An open house for prospective students on 12 June 2017.

New research into the cultural economy shows that while there is considerable public interest in access to creative jobs, there is a concern that these jobs are limited to organisation with privileged backgrounds (Oakley & O’Brien 2016; Taylor & O’Brien, 2016). Yet research that investigates the practices of arts and culture organisations that represent multicultural ethnic communities and employ minority performers and artists is virtually non-existent in the UK. This studentship will study capacity-building and resilience-enhancement in multicultural-led small creative and cultural enterprises, with emphasis on how networking processes and digital awareness impact productivity and opportunities in the sector. Particular attention will be paid to the ways that enhancements to ethnic creative industry production might not only expand and improve the cultural economy, but also act as intellectual and social ‘borderwork’, ‘contact zones’ and/or ‘engines of connectivity’ (Cooper & Rumford, 2011).