Overview

The "creative class" - the innovation engine of many societies - has been hailed as the new driver of economic growth and prosperity. Indeed, much has been made of this class since Richard Florida of the University of Toronto popularised the term in his book, "The Rise of the Creative Class". The creative class concept was cited by the Harvard Business Review as one of the "Breakthrough Ideas for 2004".

Who belongs to the creative class?

Members of the creative class work in a wide range of fields including science, technology, engineering, business, finance, entertainment, healthcare, and education. They are highly skilled and often highly educated workers who command a high wage and develop new ideas and processes that fuel economic production and expansion.

While the creative class is spread across many industries, research has shown that they tend to cluster in certain geographic areas. A recent study by Florida and his colleagues at the University of Toronto's Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI) measured and ranked the concentration of the creative class in countries around the world, with the following results:

1. Singapore (47.3% of the workforce)
2. The Netherlands (46.3%)
3. Switzerland (44.8%)
4. Australia (44.5%)
5. Sweden (43.9%)
27. United States (35.0%)
57. Brazil (18.5%)
75. China (7.4%)

While smaller economies dominate the top of the table, larger economies should not be written off. For example, while the US is ranked 27th globally, the study revealed that American cities such as Boulder in Colorado and Washington D.C., as well as regions such as Silicon Valley in California have a share of the creative class that is on par with leading locations worldwide.

Creativity fuels prosperity

According to Florida the impact of the creative class should not be underestimated. "Economic prosperity relies on cultural, entrepreneurial, civic, scientific and artistic creativity," he explains. A recent study by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development (BIPD), entitled "Talent, Technology, and Tolerance - Where Germany Has A Future", also found that "education and creative talent are the most important capital in highly developed societies today."

And the impact of the creative class is growing. Florida highlights that its share of the workforce in the United States has risen from 20 percent in 1980 to 35 percent today, and that they account for US$1.7 trillion in salary and wages - nearly half the US national total!

Florida adds: "Just about everything that makes our economy grow and keeps us competitive - from new business starts and new industries to the many little continuous improvements made every day by production workers - is the result of people exercising the universal human ability to come up with new ideas and better ways of doing things."

Not surprisingly, decision-makers in many countries and cities have taken these insights to heart, and are actively working to attract the creative class to harness the positive impact that they bring. Achieving this successfully, however, requires an understanding of the wants and needs of the creative class.

Facts on the ground:

Attracting the creative class

While the exact needs of the creative class can be hard to pin down due to its diversity, Florida highlights two sets of factors that attract the creative class.

Firstly, there are the "hard factors" - the varying infrastructure required to support an innovative culture. These range from transportation, communication, and education to a policy environment that supports entrepreneurs and creative enterprises.

Secondly, there are also "soft factors" that need to be considered such as diversity, openness, and a lively cultural scene. Cities such as New York and San Francisco are good examples - the former boasts unparalleled museums, Broadway theatres and a wealth of nightlife, while the latter is strongly associated with a society supportive of alternative lifestyles, multiculturalism, and entrepreneurialism.

Important soft factors that are commonly highlighted during discussions are tolerance and the willingness to accept new ideas. Florida describes it as "an expansive, open culture which does not discriminate or force people into 'boxes' but allows them to be themselves and validate their varied identities ... [it] unleashes human creative potential and spurs innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic development."

While tolerance can be a difficult concept to measure, there are several indexes that attempt to measure a society's openness and tolerance. Examples of these indexes include the "Melting Pot Index", which assesses how cosmopolitan or multi-racial a location is; the "Innovation Index", which measures the number of patents granted per capita; the "Coolness Index", which grades cities' nightlife; and the "Bohemian Index", which measures the concentration of people involved in artistic creativity by taking into account the number of writers, designers, musicians, and artists that live in a city.

In light of the above, what can cities and countries do to increase their appeal to the creative class? Florida argues that attracting the creative class and the companies that employ them requires cities to accommodate their values and mores. This can come about in a variety of ways, including supportive arts and media policies, as well as initiatives that promote multiculturalism.

A welcoming environment

Singapore has been creating a welcoming environment for the creative class for a long time, and the creative class appears to have taken note of the country's efforts. Besides registering the highest share of the creative class in its workforce globally, Singapore also ranks ninth in the MPI's "Global Creativity Index", third in its "Global Talent Index", and tenth in its "Global Technology Index".

Singapore's combination of hard and soft factors makes it an attractive destination for the creative class. The city-state's hard factors, such as a fast and efficient transportation system, a clean and green environment, and world-class entertainment and nightlife, seem to have attracted the creative class in search of a high quality of life. In addition, Singapore's location in the heart of Asia makes it a unique melting pot of different cultures, languages and religions - giving it high scores in Florida's key factors of diversity and openness, alongside such global cities as New York, London, and Berlin. Singapore's history also gives it a strong link to Western culture, thus providing a unique opportunity for East and West to meet in both the realms of business and culture.

Singapore has also been actively building its arts and culture scene in recent years. The Singapore Government has been supporting the establishment of major art venues such as Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay, the National Museum of Singapore, and the Singapore Art Museum; the country also has a wealth of smaller, but no less important institutions and initiatives. The upcoming art hub at Gillman Barracks, will provide a platform for the production, discussion, and distribution of contemporary art, and is envisioned to establish Singapore as an iconic international destination for Asian art.

Art events have also increased their profile - the Singapore Biennale completed its third edition in 2011 and the second edition of Art Stage Singapore will be held at Marina Bay Sands Convention and Exhibition Centre from 12 to 15 January. Art Stage Singapore, headed by Lorenzo Rudolf, the former art director of Art Basel, is Asia's premier international art fair that brings together leading players in the Asian art market.

In addition, many other initiatives in Singapore, from technology incubators and scientific research institutes to arts centres and music festivals, address the interests of the creative class across a variety of industries and disciplines. This proactive approach illustrates how a city can position itself to be a destination of choice for the creative class.

The Singapore difference:

A home for creatives

Efforts can also be made to establish education, training, and R&D institutions that nurture the creative class. In Singapore, institutions such as the Industrial Design department at the National University of Singapore and the upcoming Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) seek to fulfil this need. At the National University of Singapore, which has been ranked among the top 30 design schools in the world by the Intentional Forum Design, students are given real-world design experience through collaborations with leading consumer product companies such as Hansgrohe, Dell, Estee Lauder, and Tupperware. When SUTD opens its doors in 2012, it will be the first university in the world to integrate concepts of design and innovation into research and engineering. Educational programs such as these will groom a new generation of tech-savvy design innovators with roots in Singapore.

A conducive R&D environment is another avenue for developing the creative class. One of the areas Singapore has chosen to focus on in this regard is biomedical science. The multi-disciplinary nature of biomedical science requires an intense collaboration between fields such as chemistry, biology, and medicine, and Singapore's Biopolis was established to provide an ecosystem to facilitate these interactions - Biopolis is a two million square foot biomedical research centre that brings together established scientific leaders and top post-doctoral students from a range of disciplines, and aims to have 4,000 researchers on-site by 2015.

"The high proportion of workers in the creative class is a good reflection of how human capital has been a key contributor to Singapore's economic growth," said Alvin Tan, Assistant Managing Director of Singapore Economic Development Board. "Over the years, industries have moved towards more knowledge and innovation intensive activities. This transition is enabled by the continuous investments in human capital development. The rich source of talent and efforts to further develop human capital makes Singapore a strategic location from which companies can attract, develop, and deploy talent for their business and innovation activities."

Fuelling innovation

With the creative class making up nearly half of Singapore's workforce, innovation can be found around every corner. From digital animation to fuel cells, companies are tapping the creative class in Singapore to inspire new developments and discoveries.

Lucasfilm is one such company. Since setting up its Singapore operations in 2006 to access the pool of talented digital artists and animators in Singapore and the region, Lucasfilm has developed major projects at its Singapore studio including the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series and Iron Man. Micheline Chau, President and COO or Lucasfilm Ltd explains: "Singapore was our location of choice for many reasons - a growing talent base, the cosmopolitan flavour, and its attractiveness as a place to live."

Another innovative company that has made Singapore its home is Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, which was founded in Singapore. Since establishing its R&D laboratories in the city-state and starting operations in 2003, Horizon's team of entrepreneurs, scientists, and engineers have achieved several technological breakthroughs across the fuel cell value chain. Its fuel cells have gained renown for powering record-setting unmanned aerial vehicle flights, as well as propelling winning teams at the Shell Eco-Marathon Asia in 2010 and 2011. The company is also the world's largest volume producer of commercial polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell products, with customers in over 40 countries.

Singapore has also attracted Live Well Collaborative, an independent innovation research centre initiated by P&G and the University of Cincinnati, to set up an extension of its US centre. The centre, supported by EDB under the Living Lab Grant, is based on a business-academia partnership model and aims to use Singapore as a base to derive insights, develop, and test-bed product innovations for the 50+ market in Asia, leveraging multi-disciplinary capabilities with design as the core.

One project that is taking off at Live Well Collaborative is a collaboration with Boeing to improve in-fight design for ageing passengers. Boeing was attracted by the opportunity of partnering with a variety of institutions. Pete Guard, cabin-experience strategy leader at Boeing, said, "Singapore is moving a lot faster than the rest of the world. It's at the epicentre of a trend that's starting to play out - all the issues of mobility, assistance, and longevity. We'll work through their university systems and design schools to help develop projects that will give us a better idea how to support travellers around the planet."

Exciting developments such as these are not just fuelling a growing number of innovations, but are also contributing to an ecosystem where the creative class feels at home. With growing competition at all levels, the need for innovation to stay ahead will make attracting, developing, and retaining the creative class an important objective for governments and companies in the years to come.