Cultural and Creative Economy 2011: High Political Ambitions and High Economic Potentials in Europe

For the first time ever the Directorate-General Enterprise and Industries of the European Commission has published a call for the creative industries providing approximately 5 million Euros and giving incentives to member states to invest also at least 100 million Euros. This, of course, is no relevant subsidy to support the creative industries in Europe with a yearly turnover of approximately 654 billion Euros in 2003. So what is the buzz about the European policy?

The message of the European Creative Industries Alliance (ECIA) is not about funding, but about a new policy and market structure for the creative industries. The call aims to establish new kinds of collaborations and incentives to overcome traditional market obstacles in the creative industries – like market fragmentation, costs and time to market and shortage of capital. To do so, the ECIA call mainstreams innovation and cluster models from already successful sectors like INNOVA – a strategy not only applauded by the cultural and creative industries (“CCIs”) sector which takes pride in its uniqueness. However, the growing political and financial support for CCIs since 2007 is a path of integration and multi-dimensional evaluation of CCIs, e.g. their influence on urban development – and not primarily directed at the economic well-being of the CCIs, as many groups have lobbied for. Do the creative industries need to catch up with the policy development of the last two years?

Unlocking the Potential of Cultural and Creative Industries

The strategic turning point for the creative industries was the Green Paper Unlocking the Potential of Cultural and Creative Industries initiated in 2010 by the DG Education and Culture. The european centre for creative economy (ecce), an institute of RUHR.2010, has taken part in the consultation of the Green Paper by initiating the first and only platform for culture and creative economy in Brussels, the ECCI Summit, already in 2008.

The Green Paper states areas of action for the CCIs which are important to understand for each and every single entrepreneur:

1) Cultural diversity, the digital shift and globalization

2) Local and regional development

3) Towards a creative economy: the spillovers of the CCIs

Given the influence of European regulations and incentives down to the local level, this might be vital to improve any individual business model. Companies using the new structure of the European policies might have the know-how advantage one needs to come in first in the market marathon.

The vision stated within the Green Paper is “Art and culture have a unique capacity to create green jobs, to raise awareness, challenge social habits and promote behavioural shifts in our societies, including our general attitude to nature. The key question here is how to accelerate the positive spillover effects that culture and CCIs can produce on the wider economy and society.”

However this vision is not only about spillover effects. Within the "Innovation Union" flagship initiative the Green Paper names specific actions which will be undertaken – e.g. “In this respect, specific attention will be paid to promote entrepreneurship, access to finance, to improve framework conditions and foresight, to identify research and skills needs, to develop new cluster concepts and better business and innovation support.”

C’n’B as the melting point and marketplace for the new European impulses

2010 was a good policy year for the creative industries – parallel to the Green Paper more and more projects within the European Regional Development Fund were launched for creative industries, e.g. “Creative Cities” with Leipzig as lead partner, just to name one of many interesting initiatives.

Important developments for the European creative industries were also initiated in North Rhine-Westphalia during 2010: the european centre for creative economy in Dortmund, the Creativity & Business Convention (C’n’B), cluster management creative.NRW, START in Duisburg and co-working houses as well as the European Co-Working Conference.

ecce is a sustainable development of the European Capital of Culture 2010 – in 2011, it will be converted to an own legal public institute with the mission to develop and support the creative industries at a local, national and international level. It is located at the Dortmunder U – Centre for Art and Creativity and realises its projects in cooperation with the business development Wirtschaftsförderung metropoleruhr (wmr) and with the support of the city of Dortmund and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The promotion and building-up of a European meeting point and marketplace for the European CCIs in North Rhine-Westphalia such as the C’n’B is therefore a strategic priority for the activity of ecce. With its scope on CCIs and its crossings with digital technology, entertainment and transnational exchange the C’n’B has the capacity to position itself as the melting point and marketplace for the new European impulses of the ECIA.

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