Overview

To thrive in a disrupted world you will need commercial acumen to realise your creative ambitions. The MA Creative Innovation and Entrepreneurship will teach you how to apply your existing creative practice to real-world business challenges. For example:

  • starting up your career and ideas in a professional-supported environment,
  • undertaking applied commercial projects in collaborative teams,
  • learning human-centred techniques for designing and developing ideas of real value.

We welcome students from any creative, arts, or humanities discipline or background who are thinking about building a career out of their practice either in existing organisations or startups.

This programme shares much of its teaching with our other Innovation and Entrepreneurship programmes (MSc and MA) but has a specific focus on the creative industries and creative entrepreneurship.

You will develop the high-level skills and critical competencies needed for successful organisational innovation and entrepreneurship, through a largely practice-orientated educational approach based on collaborative teamwork across disciplines and cultures.

During the programme, you will get opportunities to work alongside creative businesses and agencies to develop a deep understanding of their opportunities and challenges.

Bristol is a recognised hub for innovative and entrepreneurial business, being ranked within the top five best places in the UK to start-up outside of London (Startup Cities Index, 2022), and home to some of the most impactful, innovative, and creative organisations in the world.

Find out more about the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Programme structure

The degree is delivered through practical units on innovation-led entrepreneurial skills; design and systems thinking; and developing and prototyping ideas.

In the first teaching block, you will learn about human-centred design thinking to develop innovations that create value by meeting real human needs. This involves understanding your target audience and their issues and testing ideas for possible solutions. You will gain insight into the technological, social and political influences on design and innovation, drawing on case studies of success and failure to help you think about future opportunities.

In the second teaching block, you will explore solutions for a real-world client, iterating to develop an unexpected range of possibilities and creating prototypes to test with customers or users. You will learn about different kinds of enterprise, how to explore your ideas from a business perspective and how to place them in the appropriate context. And you will assess the viability, feasibility, sustainability and desirability of a proposed venture while writing compelling business plans.

In your final summer project, you will pull together all you have learned to create a product or service as an entrepreneurial or innovative new venture.

There are no exams, only coursework, which typically includes both individual and group assessments. You will also get the chance to work in interdisciplinary teams throughout the year.

Visit our programme catalogue for full details of the structure and unit content for our MA in Creative Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Entry requirements

You will typically need an upper second-class honours degree or an international equivalent in any discipline.

If you are currently completing a degree, we understand that your final grade may be higher than the interim grades or module/unit grades you have achieved during your studies to date.

We will consider your application if your interim grades are currently slightly lower than the programme's entry requirements and may make you an aspirational offer. This offer would be at the standard level, so you would need to achieve the standard entry requirements by the end of your degree. Specific module requirements would still apply.

We will also consider your application if your final overall achieved grade is slightly lower than the programme's entry requirement. If you have at least one of the following, please include your CV (curriculum vitae / résumé) when you apply, showing details of your relevant qualifications:

  • Evidence of significant (minimum two years), relevant work experience in one of the following sectors:
    • Roles within the creative sector (eg advertising, architecture, crafts, creative agency work, designer, heritage, fashion/textiles manufacture or design, film, radio, games and TV production, musician, music production, performing arts/theatre, visual arts (as a maker or curator), writing and publishing)
  • A relevant postgraduate qualification.

See international equivalent qualifications on the International Office website.

Read the programme admissions statement for important information on entry requirements, the application process and supporting documents required.

Go to admissions statement

If English is not your first language, you will need to reach the requirements outlined in our profile level C.

Further information about English language requirements and profile levels.

Fees and funding

Home: full-time
£19,700 per year
Home: part-time (two years)
£9,850 per year
Overseas: full-time
£35,300 per year

Fees are subject to an annual review. For programmes that last longer than one year, please budget for up to an 8% increase in fees each year.

More about tuition fees, living costs and financial support.

Alumni discount

University of Bristol students and graduates can benefit from a 25% reduction in tuition fees for postgraduate study. Check your eligibility for an alumni discount.

Funding and scholarships

Funding and studentship opportunities are listed on the Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences funding pages.

Further information on funding for prospective UK and international postgraduate students.

Career prospects

This programme will prepare you to create your own creative entrepreneurial venture or join an existing creative organisation.

You will graduate with a portfolio of work that shows what you can do - you may even have an emergent venture. You will build a network of contacts to draw on whether you are starting-up or seeking innovative roles.