School of Creative and Cultural Industries Home
The School of Creative and Cultural Industries is part of the Faculty of Business and Creative Industries. With approximately 1000 students and 50 academic staff, we offer innovative and dynamic programmes of study at the Ayr, Paisley, Dumfries and Hamilton campuses and at Stow College, Cumbernauld College, and Glasgow Metropolitan College. We also have offices in Film City Glasgow and at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, which we use as a base for teaching, research, and knowledge transfer projects. These form part of the University’s Glasgow Creative Enterprise Cluster.
In 2010 UWS attained Skillset Media Academy status, which endorsed our position as one of the UK’s centres of excellence in broadcasting, interactive media and the digital arts. We enjoy productive relationships with industry partners, enabling students to gain access to leading creative organisations as part of their programmes, and offering everyone opportunities for valuable work experience and hands-on skills development in industry settlings. With a collaborative and interactive approach to learning, each year we welcome many visiting experts and offer special projects and opportunities for students to develop their creative and artistic skills.
Our programmes are designed by staff with wide-ranging experience in broadcasting, film, journalism, languages, music, performance and the visual arts. They aim to develop key skills in creativity, critical and analytical thinking, and enterprise. We strive to produce graduates who will be able to compete successfully in their chosen sectors, set up their own production company/creative business, and demonstrate a critically aware, theoretically informed view of their discipline.
None of our degree programmes could operate without excellent facilities. Ours are equalled only by those of the broadcast and media industries. At the Ayr Campus there are two television studios, four radio studios, a fully operational radio station, digital editing suites, two Pro Tools equipped recording studios, music production suites, two drama studios and a large stock of audiovisual equipment. In August 2011 we moved into our brand new, purpose built Ayr riverside campus, which further enhances the quality of the resources on offer. The Hamilton Campus has two fully equipped broadcast studios, a newsroom running the Burli system and two Apple labs. Language students at the Paisley Campus have access to a Language Centre with a suite of computers and specialist media resources.
Across all degree programmes, all students have the opportunity to go out to undertake work experience. We have over 370 placement partners across all areas of the media, design, music and performance industries.
The quality of the student experience is very important to us, and we try very hard to make sure that all students have access to the support and guidance that they need to make their time with us a success. University life is not always easy: students in the School will have to work hard, but we are confident that the commitment will be worthwhile.
The School runs a year-round programme of events, workshops, performances and seminars, principally on our campuses and at CCA Glasgow. In 2010–11, our MashingUp interdisciplinary symposium series returns to CCA with a monthly event. We also support Ayrtime, a festival of events bringing eclectic and cutting edge cultural practitioners to Ayr. Major University-wide events such as Creative Choices and Digital Futures bring together our research community with undergraduate students and professional organisations. Commercial Music students manage an International Band Exchange with partners in Germany and France, and we have joint projects and exchanges with partner universities across Europe, in Canada and the USA.
In 2008's Research Assessment Exercise, we submitted 10 staff to UoA 36, Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, and 30% of our research output was judged to be of world-leading or internationally excellent quality. We have over 30 doctoral students, a suite of industry-ready Masters programmes, and a developing CPD offer for the creative and cultural industries. School staff regularly publish critically acclaimed articles and books, present work at conferences and symposia across the UK and internationally, and are active at the highest levels of professional practice in industry, academia, policy, and knowledge exchange.
We are a dynamic, friendly and rapidly developing School and we hope that you will want to join us to share in the experience. More about the work of our staff can be found on individual pages and our School blog, which includes links to a range of social media sites where we can be found. You can also find a student run Facebook group here, which lists opportunities and events.
DIGITAL ART
MUSIC
PERFORMANCE
JOURNALISM