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Professor Chris Bilton is a Professor of Creative Industries at the University of Warwick's Faculty of Arts, specifically within the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies. He currently serves as the director of the BA in Media and Creative Industries and is the Warwick academic lead on the CreaTech Frontiers project, a collaboration between Warwick, Coventry, Birmingham and Birmingham City Universities together with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Previously, he directed the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies from 2008 until 2014 and founded the MA in Creative and Media Enterprises program, which he led from 1999 until 2008.
Professor Bilton completed his PhD at the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies in 1998, examining cultural democracy in the UK and the US from 1870 to 1990. Before joining Warwick in 1997, he worked for ten years in the cultural sector, touring Britain and Europe as a writer, performer and manager with Balloonatics Theatre Company and serving as Arts Development Officer for City of Westminster Arts Council in London.
His research focuses on the management of creative and media businesses, alternative approaches to organization, employment and strategy formation in the cultural sector, cultural democracy and community arts, creativity theory, and particularly the negative consequences of 'creativity' for organizations and individuals. Professor Bilton is currently working on two major projects: a book about myths of creativity on film with Professor Jo Garde-Hansen, and research exploring impacts of Covid, welfare policies and Universal Basic Income upon creative work and workers across Europe. His most recent publications include Cultural Management: a research overview (Routledge 2023) and Creativities: the What, How, Where, Who and Why of the Creative Process (Edward Elgar 2022) with Stephen Cummings and dt ogilvie.
Professor Bilton's scholarly output reveals an evolving trajectory from early work on creative strategy and management toward more nuanced examinations of cultural management frameworks across three generations (1.0-3.0), with increasing attention to the complexities of creative work in digital environments and the paradoxical nature of creativity itself. His influential concept of 'uncreativity' challenges conventional wisdom about creative work by examining its shadow side and negative consequences.
Professor Bilton serves on the editorial board for the International Journal of Cultural Policy and has edited special editions on 'Creativity and Cultural Policy'. His research has been supported by organizations including the AHRC, Arts Council England, and NESTA, particularly for the Happenstance Project which investigated the effects of digital innovation on organizational culture in three arts organizations.
With over twenty years of experience teaching in the field, Professor Bilton has supervised eleven PhD students to completion on diverse topics ranging from autonomous work in the Korean television industry to creativity in video games and cultural entrepreneurship. He currently teaches three modules on the BA in Media and Creative Industries program: Media Cultural and Creative Industries (year 1), Media and Cultural Management (year 2), and Leadership for Innovation (year 3). He co-hosts the Media Whatever podcast with Dr. Carolina Bandinelli and is a founding member of the Warwick Creative Exchange, a network facilitating knowledge exchange between cultural organizations and Warwick academics.
