13. Creative Futures

Published by: Creative Pedagogy

Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Year: 2026

Author:

Adam Shaw, School Employability Manager, Nottingham School of Art & Design, Nottingham Trent University

Corresponding Author: adam.shaw@ntu.ac.uk

Creative Futures is Nottingham School of Art & Design’s flagship employability-related event, held annually in Term 2. NSA&D has a rich history of collaboration with the creative industries, and benefits from strong links to partners and alumni. This birthed an event focused on supporting students in the early stages of their creative careers, which remained a NSA&D staple, ran in partnership by the School and Employability Service. However, following the pandemic, attendance at the event had declined annually, resulting in 203 students attending in February 2023.

A new approach was required to engage students, renew academic support, collaborate with partners, and reimagine the event supporting students’ navigation towards career exploration and graduate-level roles in the creative industries. This reflected the need to treat employability as more than immediate job outcomes, and instead as a broader developmental process shaped by skills, confidence, identity and opportunity (Yorke, 2006; Tomlinson, 2017).