Master in Leadership for the Arts and Creative Industries is an interdisciplinary study program where students acquire specialized expertise for a career in the creative industries. It builds on the broad fields of leadership and communication, but sharpens the academic offering with research-based knowledge about leadership within the arts and creative industries. The program is suitable for students with backgrounds in arts and media studies, leadership, economics, marketing, or communication.

The creative industries encompass public and private enterprises in all sectors within the culture and media sector: music, film & TV, performing arts, books, media, games, events, visual arts, radio & podcasts, advertising, and design. Common to these industries is that the enterprises combine communication, creativity, and aesthetics, and special leadership competence needs arise because the products and services, and the processes of creating them, are fundamentally different from those in industries where creativity plays a lesser role.

The Master in Leadership for the Arts and Creative Industries differs from other master's programs in leadership by providing students with knowledge and skills that meet the industry's specific competence needs for leaders. This includes developing a deep understanding of both economic and cultural value creation, enabling leaders to influence and highlight both types of value creation within their enterprise. At the core of value creation are artistic and creative processes, typically involving artists—often driven by a desire to create something, more than by money—in collaboration with more conventional professional groups. Creating effective processes in such complex teams requires administrative leadership skills combined with a sensitivity to artistic and creative work. The cultural and economic value creation is reflected in the fact that the industries operate within both cultural and business policy frameworks, which students will learn to understand and navigate.

Students will encounter lecturers with deep and up-to-date knowledge of the creative industries. Many are affiliated with research groups at Kristiania, where they contribute to both Norwegian and international research projects and publish research results in some of the most recognized scientific journals related to the creative industries. Throughout the study program, students are also integrated into the academic community, including invitations to open research seminars, project presentations, and guest lectures where they can both learn and contribute to academic discussions.

To connect research-based curriculum literature and practice, students work with current and interdisciplinary cases from the creative industries, related, for example, to the effects of new technology and upheavals in international markets. In several of the courses, they will also meet practitioners from private and public enterprises, organizations, and administration. Furthermore, students receive solid methodological training that enables them to work systematically with relevant data to explore their own issues around leadership of artistic and creative work, and they are encouraged to complete their own master's theses in collaboration with the field of practice.

The Master in Leadership for the Arts and Creative Industries qualifies for a range of relevant job opportunities within leadership and administration in the creative industries.

The study program qualifies for further studies at the Ph.D. level, both nationally and internationally, including the Ph.D. program in Communication and Leadership at Kristiania.

Study program MLK

Master in Leadership for the Arts and Creative Industries