Assessing the contribution of HEIs to the creative economy of regions: The case of the University of Porto

Abstract

The growing importance of the creative industries for the economy of many countries and regions explains the efforts made over the past 15 years by several intergovernmental organizations such as the WIPO, UNCTAD, or UNESCO to develop conceptual and analytical frameworks as means to delimit the creative sector, understand its distinctive modus operandi, estimate its economic and social contribution and support the formulation of related policymaking. Many of the studies produced so far that provide a statistical analysis of the creative industries focus on the assessment of the contribution of those industries to 'output, employment, trade and economic growth' (UNCTAD, 2010: 73). However, to the best of our knowledge, few are the studies that seek to quantitatively estimate the contribution of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to the development of the creative sector, although it is widely consensual that HEIs play a pivotal role in driving the creative economy forward as 'they are