Making an impact through Creative Responsibility: Our progress in 2018

In 2016 we published our Creative Responsibility manifesto, setting out our ambition to help close the creativity gap in the UK. Today we have published the progress we’ve made so far towards that ambition.

Rooted in our unequal society, the creativity gap exists because not everyone has the opportunity to meet their creative potential.

Creative people invent, imagine and solve problems. Now, more than ever, is a time to be creative. With the rise of Artificial Intelligence, creativity will become increasingly important as the defining human talent. It sparks original thinking, and is the one thing that machines won't be able to do.

Our 2018 Creative Responsibility Report brings together all our efforts last year across the four key focus areas set out in our Manifesto: Reading, Community, Inclusion and Sustainability.

Highlights include:

• 50 primary schools participated in a pilot programme to transform their school libraries through Puffin World of Stories, with 25,000 new books donated and 77 teachers trained
• 450 young people joined us for a paid two-week work experience placement
• 1,170 teenagers took part in a careers workshop
• 6 authors discovered through WriteNow have had their books published 
• 99.6% of our paper soured from FSC^TM certified sources

Publishing this report is also a chance to celebrate the time, passion and commitment of the 1,800 colleagues who have played a part - whether through volunteering in our local schools and communities on World Book Day, or mentoring an unpublished writer from an under-represented community.