Marice Cumber (own-it.org)

Marice Cumber, Project Director / Enterprise Development Co-ordinator for own-it (www.own-it.org) has a creative-led business background. She established Mac Products Ltd (a decorative ceramics company) in 1986 with the help of a Prince’s Trust grant and a loan from The London Enterprise Agency. Mac Products’ work was sold through major UK and international department stores, independent design shops, museums and gallery outlets as well as having its own retail shop.

Marice devised the concept and developed The Enterprise Centre for the Creative Arts in 2000 (ECCA, www.ecca-london.org) at the University of the Arts London. ECCA is an ongoing “graduate employability service”. It addresses the ongoing information, advice and training business needs of the creative practitioner; and provides immediate support and guidance through its online facility which is further developed by the face-to-face advice service.

In May 2003, Marice was awarded the Enterprise Development award from Shell LiveWIRE in recognition of her “skill, professionalism and commitment in opening up opportunities for young people to start their own business”.

Marice is also the director and founder of own-it (www.own-it.org) - an intellectual property advice service for the creative industries, providing free access to intellectual property information, events, contracts and one to ones with lawyers.

own-it is acknowledged in the Creative Britain strategy document as an example of best practice in promoting understanding and raising awareness of IP amongst the creative industries. own-it, a publicly owned service, is based in the University of the Arts London and is a partnership project with the LDA. The project was set up in 2004, and since that time over 17,700 creative businesses and practitioners have used its services and the website has an average of 7,000 visitors per month.

own-it works with 14 law firms, who provide their services free of charge, in order to deliver IP advice, events and resources to all the UK’s creative sectors. own-it is the only specialist, dedicated IP support website exclusively serving the needs of all UK creative industries.