Andy’s summer travels

Andy Pratt had a busy time over the summer. First he visited Osaka (July 22-24) attending the Association of Urban Creativity(AUC) 3^rd Annual conference.

Andy is Deputy Director of the AUC and organised the 2^nd meeting in London last year. The AUC is the conference arm of the journal City, Culture and Society (CCS), which Andy is co-editor of. Andy is currently editing a special issue of CCS collecting some of the papers from the London meeting, it should be published this academic year.

Next Andy went to Venice, where he was speaking on a special panel at the Architectural Biennale at the Arsenale Weekend Special EUROPEAN AND GLOBAL CULTURES / PERSPECTIVES ON ARCHITECTURE & (CREATIVE) ECONOMY which took place on 26-27 July.

Andy presented findings from on-going research on knowledge exchange hubs that he is carrying out as part of the AHRC Creative Works London research programme.

Finally, he went to Prato for a meeting of the Cultural Economy Network (29-30 July), a group of UNESCO experts who are advising on debates about cultural economy within UNESCO.  The main topic of debate was how to take forward policy and discussion about the UNESCO Creative Economy report. Additionally a special session was held with Prato policy makers on Prato: Re-Framing the Creative City, and international workshop; both events we held at the Monash University centre in Prato, and organised by Prof Justin O’Connor of Monash.