Scientific research on creatives and creativity
Academic collaborators
Creative Empirical is a research practice bringing scientific methods to the creative industries.
We measure how people respond to what creative organisations create (events, spaces, performances, products), using the tools of psychology and neuroscience. These are physiological measurement, validated psychometrics, and quantitative analysis.
Most organisations understand the effect of their work only indirectly, through instinct, word of mouth, reviews, or figures like sales and attendance. Many never really know at all. These are diffuse signals, and they leave the most important thing unmeasured, which is the actual psychological experience their work creates for the people who engage with it. Creative Empirical measures that directly, in those people, as it happens, turning an assumed sense of what an experience might be into a sharp, detailed picture of what it actually was.
This evidence serves two purposes. Internally, it shows an organisation what is genuinely happening in its work, including what diffuse signals miss, giving it a clear basis to steer towards what it intends and away from what it doesn't. Externally, it is independent proof of that effect, which an organisation can put in front of funders, sponsors, partners, and the public.
The findings meet scientific standards. Where a project calls for it, the practice draws on partnerships with Goldsmiths, University of London and the University of Cambridge; studies are reviewed by an independent ethics board, so the people involved are protected and the evidence is gathered to a standard others will trust; and each project brings in established researchers chosen for the specific expertise it needs. The result stands as science rather than opinion.
Creative Empirical has worked with organisations across the creative industries, including Fabric London, MONOM Studios, Mastery (LWE), Outernet London, SET, the Global Music Institute, Tavta, and Beispiel.
Creative Empirical is a company limited by guarantee (CLG) and was founded by Oliver Durcan, who combines doctoral research in the psychology and neuroscience of flow in artists and musicians, eight years at Apple, and a decade in the creative industries.
Company No. 16502201