ITV Joins Saatchi & Saatchi

Creative company Saatchi & Saatchi has announced ITV as its founding partner for Upriser, the free creative schools platform that it launched at the end of 2022.

ITV is the first major name to be announced, with a number of other partners currently being matched and onboarded at schools across the UK as part of the Upriser programme. Initially partnering with Kensington Aldridge Academy, located within a mile of ITV’s new White City HQ, ITV intends to expand the partnership to schools in other cities, including Manchester, within its network as 2023 unfolds. Additional creative partners will also ensure a presence for the platform in Leeds and Newcastle by late spring.

Upriser is Saatchi & Saatchi’s response to what the agency describes as a ‘creative crisis’: a sustained lack of funding for creative and cultural programmes in school - equating to just £9.40 a year per student - which is on track to deal a devastating blow to the UK’s creative output due to a lack of future talent coming into the industry.

Designed to inspire with the power of creativity, Upriser offers young people aged 11-18 a real, tangible introduction and route into the creative industries. To scale the platform across the UK, Saatchi & Saatchi are inviting any British creative company that wants to facilitate meaningful change to enroll as a school partner.

Partners who sign up are matched with schools local to them, and work closely with Saatchi & Saatchi to implement a long term, meaningful programme within that school, tailored to each company’s specialisms, skills and capabilities. Partner businesses and schools are also given access to a 70-page open-source playbook, which offers a sustainable blueprint of multi-layered 1:1 mentoring programmes, lesson plans, workplace visits and other creative initiatives, and is informed by Saatchi & Saatchi’s two year partnership with Harris Academy Greenwich.

www.itv.com