Harmonising Innovation: The RNCM Shaping Tomorrow’s Musical Entrepreneurs and Changemakers

“RNCM mobilises musicians to graduate into the world’s confident risk takers, innovators and changemakers” – (RNCM, 2023)

In December 2023, the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), based in Manchester, became the UK’s entrepreneurial University of the Year. Founded in 1973, but dating back to the 1890s, the College is dedicated to providing its students with an outstanding education and is recognised as one of the world’s most forward-thinking conservatories. According to the competition’s judging panel, “The Royal Northern College of Music really demonstrated what can be done, with a third of their degrees turned over to enterprise and entrepreneurship, freelance work assessed in-house, and research on effective ways to train creative industry students”.

The music industry contributes around £6 billion to the U.K. economy, and the RNCM recognises the importance of entrepreneurial training for its students, particularly given the COVID-19 pandemic experience. As almost 25 percent of creative arts graduates will embark on freelance careers, they will need to think and behave entrepreneurially, but that is not the main motivation for the College’s approach. Rather, according to Dr Michelle Phillips (Head of Enterprise and Senior Lecturer in Music Psychology), their students “want to have an impact on the world with their music; they want to make a difference and to make the world a better place”. The College’s theme for the year is “The Future is Green”, with the staff supporting their students to generate ideas on how, through their music, they can help find solutions to the sustainability challenges the world is facing (be they climate change, poverty, hunger, inequality, etc.).  As Dr Phillips acknowledges, “we focus on creating new ideas which create various kinds of value: social, cultural, community, health, and well-being as well as financial”.

Hence, entrepreneurship is embedded within the College’s strategic plan for 2020–2025, the aim being to empower their students to become the leaders and shapers of the future of the music industry. As accustomed as they are to learning experientially, the RNCM students are encouraged to collaborate, take risks, and create cutting-edge experimental new music and performance art. However, it is not just the students who are expected to be entrepreneurial; the staff are also. They are encouraged to generate new ideas through a Teaching and Learning Awards Scheme, while the Principal’s Recognition Scheme recognises their entrepreneurial initiatives.

In 2020, in partnership with the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and the University of the Arts London, the College received a grant of £902,153 from the Office for Students and Research England to explore the most effective ways to train creative industries students. This led to the “StART Entrepreneurship Programme”, which is intended to enrich the entrepreneurial training provided by the three institutions through innovative and enhanced tuition opportunities and knowledge exchange activities. Importantly, as a result of the project, the RNCM staff have published three peer-reviewed papers, eight invited and keynote presentations, eight international conference presentations, and numerous entrepreneurship blogs. Additionally, they have shared their experience and findings with colleagues in music academies not just nationally but internationally, in Finland and the USA.

RNCM is, therefore, both an award-winning Entrepreneurial University and an example of Harmonious Entrepreneurship. It approaches the Sustainability Challenge systemically and, in so doing, addresses specifically SDGs 4 (Quality Education), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), 9 (Industry Innovation and Infrastructure), and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). It thereby ensures that profit, planet, and people are in harmony, and it trains its students not just to excel musically but to be entrepreneurial and to meet “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

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