Even after the recent economic crisis, cultural and creative industries are still able to easily draw audience members and consumers, as well as new talent to enrich these fields. Exploring the topic from economic, artistic, and policymaking perspectives, Pioneering Minds Worldwide is an interdisciplinary approach to these trades on a global scale, while making an important distinction between the cultural sector—products that are consumed on the spot, such as concerts or dance performances—and the creative sector, which generates artistic products that we have a protracted interaction with, i.e. design, architecture, and advertising. The authors of these highly informative essays offer new concepts and viewpoints on the entrepreneurial dimension of the cultural and creative industries in sixteen countries and explore how urban area development, new technological innovations, and education all influence these continually expanding industries.

Giep Hagoort is professor of art and economics at Utrecht University and Utrecht School of the Arts. Aukje Thomassen is associate professor in design and head of research at Auckland University, New Zealand School of Art + Design. Rene Kooyman is a publicist and managing editor of the EU EACEA Research on the Entrepreneurial Dimension of Cultural and Creative Industries.