THE Scottish Music Industry Association announce new research plans for 2020 to measure how much the music industry is worth to Scotland’s economy.
Led by the University of Glasgow in partnership with the Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA) – a membership organisation and innovation agency which exists to represent and develop Scotland’s music industry – the project will explore how much money the sector generates annually in sales of music and services.
Dr Matt Brennan, a Reader in Popular Music at the University’s College of Arts, and PhD student Robert Allan, also a founding and current member of the band Glasvegas, will be carrying out the research over the next three years.
The research hopes to provide a robust map of the music industries in Scotland. It also hopes to reflect many changes in the industry over the last two decades and the lack of Scottish-specific data.
Dr Brennan, said: “This is a landmark research partnership that aims to provide the most comprehensive study of the Scottish music industry to date. Allan impressed us in his interview for the post with his insights on Scotland’s position within the global music economy based on his many years of experience as an internationally touring musician, coupled with his track record as a mature student who recently achieved the top mark in his class completing his music degree, which included an innovative dissertation on the impacts of touring on the mental health of musicians.”
‘Mapping and Measuring the Scottish Music Industry’ project is a new Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) collaborative doctoral award, and also marks the launch of the newly formed Interdisciplinary Music Industries Research Group (IMIRGe) at the University of Glasgow. The mission of IMIRGe is “to produce world-class analytical and empirical music industries research that contributes to public and policy debates in Scotland, the UK, the EU, and globally.”
Find out more about the work of the Scottish Music Industry Association here.
