Background

The university of the future must have creativity at its core. When understood broadly, creativity can encourage alternative ways of thinking and doing, offering human-centred solutions to complex problems while functioning as a force for the public good. Creativity is, of course, often rooted in artistic practice – but it also cuts across and sustains all academic disciplines, underpinning scientific discovery, technological innovation, societal transformation, archival investigation, and more. The University of Galway’s Institute for Creativity aims not only to identify and explain those patterns but also to provide international leadership in the development of new possibilities: new ways of questioning, sustaining, and re-making our world, for the better. 

Galway is an ideal location for the realisation of those ambitions. Ireland’s Atlantic seaboard is strongly associated with culture and creativity – both in the past (as the birthplace of the Irish literary revival) and in the present (as one of the most youthful and diverse communities in Ireland). Named Europe’s Capital of Culture for 2020, the city is home to the internationally renowned Druid Theatre and Galway International Arts Festival (the University has formal partnerships with both). Galway also has a thriving ecosystem of artists and agencies (many of them working in Irish as well as in English) who are at the cutting-edge of filmmaking, gaming, broadcasting, music, theatre, and other artforms. 

The University of Galway is a pillar of the creative ecosystem in the city and the country, and our academic curriculum has creativity at its heart in both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. The university already attracts major funded research projects (including Irish Research Council, Science Foundation Ireland, Creative Europe, Horizon, and ERC) which support and develop national and international projects in creativity and creative industries. These achievements are reflected in many indicators of international esteem: in the QS rankings, for example, English (top 100) and Performing Arts (top 120) are among the highest ranked subjects in the university. 

Nationally, Ireland has placed creativity firmly at the centre of public policy. The Irish government has established Creative Ireland, an agency dedicated to linking creativity, community, and well-being for all its citizens. Its Minister for Arts recently launched a pilot basic income scheme for the arts, providing professional artists with a guaranteed income. Irish foreign policy has placed new emphasis on cultural diplomacy by appointing cultural attaches to several of its embassies. And a variety of important new policies – most recently including a Digital Creative Industries Roadmap – have been launched since 2019. 

These developments are happening in the context of the creation of a new funding landscape for academic research, as evident in the establishment in 2024 of a new national Research Agency, which places strong emphasis on basic and frontier research, including in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. And, as a member of the European Union, Ireland continues to play an essential role in the development of European research, including the new European Agenda for Culture (2018). These local, national, and international contexts explain the University of Galway’s major strategic investment in this area.