Culture & Creative Industries

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Supporting our Cultural, Heritage and Creative projects

The West Midlands has a rich and diverse cultural and creative ecosystem. West Midland’s Combined Authority’s (WMCA) primary role around culture and creativity is as an enabler, champion, and influencer to support the cultural and creative sector to thrive in the West Midlands. WMCA work in close partnership with local authorities, government, arms-length bodies, universities, culture and creative industries sector partners, and regional and national bodies, to support culture and creativity across the region.

WMCA commission industry led sector body Create Central who bring together some of the region's most successful TV, film, games, and wider creative content business leaders. These leaders offer their time and experience to develop innovative approaches to turbo-charge the West Midlands creative content sector. Create Central was developed with national bodies to build on the region’s existing creative and cultural talent and take it to the next level, helping to drive investment, growth and thousands of new jobs.

Activities of the WMCA's creative and cultural work include:

• Ensuring the wider benefits of creativity, culture, and heritage are embedded across WMCA policy areas such as Economy, Skills, Transport, Housing and Land, Communities and Wellbeing
• Championing our creative and cultural sector nationally and internationally
  
  
• Working in partnership with government and stakeholders to develop the sector and increase investment for culture and creative industries, building on regional strengths to foster innovation and support creative clusters
  
  
• Advocating for projects that bring wider benefits to our region
  
  
• Enabling research and data-driven innovation within the creative sector
  
  
• Delivering the WMCA’s Culture and Creative Framework and Heritage Framework priorities
  
  
• Supporting the Innovation Accelerator programme, led by Innovate UK on behalf of UK Research and Innovation, to invest in transformative R&D projects to accelerate the growth of the West Midlands high-potential innovation clusters
  
  
• Collaborating with Arm’s Length Bodies of the DCMS to share expertise and insight across culture, heritage, sport, communities, and the visitor economy, to maximise the impact of funding and policy decisions taken within the region

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Latest funding and programme opportunities

West Midlands Ownership Hub

Find out how to set up a co-op through the West Midlands Ownership Hub programme

Cultural and Creative Programmes

Cultural and Creative programmes

Find all our Culture and Creative projects and activity of work

Culture and Creative events

Creativity Week

Promoting arts, culture and creativity across the region

Culture, Creative and Heritage

Why culture matters

How we're working to support our culture and heritage

More Than a Moment Pledge

Making a radical and bold change through MTaM Pledge.

Advisory Groups and West Midlands Combined Authority

Meet our board and representatives from the sector

West Midlands Cultural Sector Research Project

Find out about collaboration across arts and culture

Cultural Advocacy Toolkit and Research Reports

Find assets to support our cultural projects