CreatINNES is an EU funded project for creation of strategic partnerships between Cultural and Creative Industry (CCI) organizations and businesses dedicated to unlock the potential of CCIs by business and digital skills development and improving access to finance of cultural and creative, audio-visual and digital start-ups and freelancers. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to better support of the creation and business development in the CCI sector, with special focus on audio-visual sector, through innovative and multidisciplinary, blended and need-based VET training programme for start-ups and freelancers. This wider objective is directly in alignment with the aims of the “Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training”. The rationale behind the project is to address latest trends in the CCI sector related to digital revolution that bring forward new challenges and new opportunities not only for CCI but also for closely related sectors, such as tourism. The project objectives and activities are based on the latest in-depth studies related to Cultural and Creative Sector (CCS) trends on global and European level, and the expressed key concerns and recommendations for future of education and skills gaps. According to Eurostat, in 2015 the cultural sector constituted 2.9% of the total European workforce and the whole CCIs sector represents around 4% of European GDP and provides jobs to 8 million people. EY study concludes that Europe is the second-largest CCI market, and explains that “Europe’s cultural economy is rooted in its history: the region enjoys a unique concentration of heritage and arts institutions.” By themselves, through their spill-overs, and through their power to increase the attraction of cities and regions for other companies CCIs are now acknowledged as a key driver for growth and innovation increasing the competitiveness of the European economy. Although CCI is an important player in the economy encouraging competitiveness and inclusiveness of business, digitisation is posing new opportunities and challenges for the CCI actors. In particular, the speed and the amount of information offered by new digital technologies, allow better accessibility to European cultural heritage thus increasing the possibilities of its promotion and economic exploitation not only by the responsible management institutions, but also by CCI and digital businesses. However, CCI has always been fragmented by small businesses or individuals that have challenges in access to finance that is important for their scaling. For CCI start-ups and freelancers in Europe to make the most out of digitisation and new trends the study “Mapping the Creative Value Chains - A study on the economy of culture in the digital age” states that due to new developments new skills in CCI are required especially business skills via innovative curricula in arts education and more flexibility in combining different disciplines. Additionally an adequate material and training about the business implications of digitalisation and new models of co-operation to overcome the small size of most entities, ”out-of-the-sector” thinking and cross-sectoral collaboration for the European economy and society at large should be promoted by bringing together CCI and other sector actors together. Nevertheless that CCI seems to be a fast growing sector, the SWOT analysis conducted by Austrian Institute for SME Research and VVA Europe in the report shows that CCI in general suffers from low investment readiness in the CCI because the entrepreneurs often lack business skills to market their projects to financial institutions and entrepreneurial skills, including mobilising financial opportunities. The European agenda is to promote and create new digital champions, and at the same time to boost the creative industry and to keep a leading position in the world. Therefore, direct beneficiaries of CreatINNES project are more than 210 freelancers, start-ups and other stakeholders working in the CCI, audio-visual, digital and tourism sector, including ones that are promoting European cultural heritage. Six partners from five EU countries, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Hungary, are joining their knowledge and practical experience to create two innovative training programmes for blended learning. The VET programme will be developed by co-creation in creative labs, will use digital technologies such as open online course and learning platform for educators and CCI/audio-visual entrepreneurs, and will encompass blended and industry-based learning. The VET programme will include a multi-disciplinary skills development and joint actions so that talents can work together considering the real needs of potential users, cultural heritage management institutions and better exploiting the market opportunities linked to the European cultural heritage.
The CreatINNES partnership is dedicated today to the topic - the relationship between creativity and successful business development, between creativity and innovation in the economy. CCIs are acknowledged as a key driver for growth and innovation, increasing the competitiveness of the European economy and other sectors. The employment in CCI is constantly increasing. Nevertheless, there are identified gaps in the sector and related needs: CCI has always been fragmented by micro-enterprises, startups and freelancers who meet different business challenges. On other hand, the creative thinking, new models of cooperation, thinking "outside the sector" and cross-sectoral cooperation are other important topics for non-CCI organizations. As a result of in-depth analysis, the CreatINNES partnership developed two special training programs aimed at different target groups - on the one hand are freelancers and startups in the cultural and creative industries (CCI) that need business skills to be successful on market; and on the other hand, there are entrepreneurs who have innovative thinking but lack knowledge about creative thinking and its application in business. Therefore, creative people and business people have what to exchange as learning experience and knowledge. This was also the base, on which our consortium was build. The project addresses the identified priority needs of start-ups and freelancers in CCI sector and non-CCI innovative entrepreneurs regarding development of entrepreneurial, business, financial, creative, IPR and digital skills. Moreover, in the situation of COVID-19 and the applied restrictions for the society to deal with this pandemic, online training has acquired a very important role, especially for working students who want to combine learning with their daily work activities from a convenient location. CreatINNES team develop the “CreatINNES Academy” platform for blended learning to provide opportunity of the learners to choose how to gain knowledge in preferred by them topic according to their flexibility – only self-learning or supported also by a trainer. The overall objective of our strategic partnership was to provide support for business development in the CCI and digital sectors through innovative VET programs for startups and freelancers. The following specific objectives guided our project wotk: identification of skills gaps in the CCI sector, creating, implementing and promoting a sustainable VET program at transnational level, and providing knowledge to improve access to finance and growth opportunities for CCI and digital start-ups. The multidisciplinary team represents the target groups and expertise needed to achieve target results. They involved in the project activities: • > 950 individuals working in the cultural and creative industries • > 650 non-CCI entrepreneurs • > 600 regional multipliers • > 1000 members of the partnership networks • Representatives of media, press, and bloggers supporting 38 external publications in total. CreatINNES implemented the following activities: - Research with two surveys and in-depth need analysis; - Development two multilingual training programs, which are tailor-made for blended learning, targeting for freelancers and startups acting in cultural and creative industries, non-CCI entrepreneurs including such as arising from European cultural heritage, and from cross-sector cooperation with tourism sector; - Development of a digital platform (https://moodle.creatinnes.eu) for blended learning “CreatINNES Academy”; - Creation of a methodology named “Blended Learning Methodology for CreatINNES”, targeting trainers, learners and other stakeholders, introducing an innovative approach in creating VET programmes for CCIs; - Performing communication and dissemination activities; and - Sustainability actions such as development of services and trainings activities, which will be further deployed by project partners also after the end of the CreatINNES project duration. CreatINNES is bridging the training gap between creativity and innovation. As a results, it impacts even in a longer term benefits by - Unlocking economic potential for obtaining cutting-edge skills for creative entrepreneurship and development of the so-called “creative culture of entrepreneurship”. - Strengthening the capacities to drive and turn the passion and existing creative concepts into success stories. - Offering practical and free open education training for freelancers and small companies in CCI and innovative startup for effectively exploring their ideas and make sure there is a market that will pay for what they have to offer. - Creating a business environment for business ventures based on creativity and innovation. - Raising awareness of needs and benefits by integrating entrepreneurial and creativity education. - Using digital instruments in the training for establishing and promoting sustainable VET support in a transnational scale.