Companies that harness art and science skills outperform their competitors in terms of sales, employment, productivity and innovation, finds new research from UK innovation charity Nesta and the University of Sussex.
In The Fusion Effect, published today, the authors used official data1 to analyse the contribution of employees’ science and arts skills in relation to companies’ performance between 2010 and 2012. The research comes at a time when the government is promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) rather than STEAM – with the addition of Arts – in spite of a burgeoning creative economy2. The report found that ‘fused’ companies – those that combine the two disciplines within their workforce – show 8 percent higher sales growth than science-only firms. They are also 2 percent more likely to bring radical innovations to market. The report estimates that 3.5 million people are employed in such businesses which despite accounting for around a tenth of UK companies, employ roughly a fifth of all workers.
Examples of companies that show the ‘fusion effect’ include Sugru, the world’s first mouldable glue that turns into rubber, created by a team of designers and material scientists to overcome household and industrial design and production hurdles. Double Negative, a multi-Oscar award winning visual effects studio, also combined scientific and artistic capabilities to model phenomena like wormholes and black holes for the Hollywood film, Interstellar. Policymakers have long prioritised supporting companies to access the skills they need for growth but there has been no measure of what skills combination is most desirable. Drawing on this new evidence The Fusion Effect recommends that policymakers support the growing STEAM education movement alongside calls for greater investment in the UK workforce’s STEM skills.
Hasan Bakhshi, director of creative and digital economy at Nesta, comments: “This research reveals that firms in possession of a mix of arts and science skills perform better than those with science skills alone. The UK is blessed with a large numbers of these firms, no doubt helping to explain the strength of its creative economy. Education should build on this strength by making it easier for young people to pursue a combination of arts and science subjects.” Dr Josh Siepel, SPRU – the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex says: “Our findings show that firms combining arts and science skills are prevalent throughout the economy, and these firms grow faster across all sectors. Creative skills play a vital role in unlocking growth throughout the economy, and this research opens up new ways of thinking about the vital complementariness between two areas that have long been seen as incompatible.”
