SHIFT – Shared Initiatives for Training In today’s rapidly changing world, it is a great challenge to create a path for sustainable societies working together to face the global challenges such as climate change, gender equality or inclusion of minorities. Arts and culture have a recognised role in shaping societies and have the potential to significantly contribute to a better and more sustainable future for all, as demanded by the UN with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs - https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/). European cultural networks have an acknowledged structuring effect on their specific field within the arts and culture sector, as they often have been created for that very reason. Specific training for cultural leaders is needed in order to face the above mentioned challenges and to implement necessary changes. Personal and professional development as well as knowledge based training on particular subjects is crucial. University programmes in cultural management only offer very limited specific training in cultural leadership and hardly any VET programmes exist when it comes to knowledge about and the implementation of SDGs in the field of culture. Thus, the enormous potential of transnational cultural networks towards a more sustainable future is not fully used and therefore new training models are needed. AIM: The project SHIFT aims at shifting towards better trained cultural leaders, specifically those of transnational cultural networks, with regards to SDGs. Cultural leaders shall be enabled to implement changes where needed and to pass on their knowledge gained through the project to leaders and staff of members of their network and to the broader cultural sector. OBJECTIVES: Three out of the 17 SDGs, which are the most relevant for the cultural sector in Europe at the moment, have been selected as a starting point to activate and increase the sector’s awareness of the sustainable goals. In order to use in the most optimal way the resources and capacities of the networks and to enable the target group to learn about these, the focus will be put on the following SDGs, other SDGs might be addressed in future initiative: ● SDG 13: Climate Action ● SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities ● SDG 5: Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women In order to achieve the aim of the SHIFT project it is necessary ● To improve the personal and professional development of leading staff within cultural networks and beyond to enable them to face challenges and adapt changes when needed, including the evaluation of planned activities; ● To increase the knowledge about the three SDGs mentioned above and to improve the capacity of leading staff for their implementation. TARGET GROUPS: ● Direct Beneficiaries of the project activities, within the consortium on partners: ○ Leaders / directors / coordinators ○ Board / working group / commission / committee members ○ Fellows / members of youth groups ○ Junior staff members with the potential to develop into leadership positions ○ Senior staff members leading one or more projects or activities within the network ● Indirect Beneficiaries: ○ staff of members of the networks in the partner consortium ○ staff of other networks and organisations in the sector Indirect benefits will be achieved through multiplying events, through communication about the project development and through the dissemination of project results. EXPECTED Results ● Production of Output 1, Online Manual “Cultural Leadership” ● Production of Output 2, Online Manual “Environmental Sustainability”, referring to UN SDG no. 13 ● Production of Output 3, Online Manual “Gender and Power-relations”, referring to UN SDG no. 5 ● Production of Output 4 Guidelines “Reducing Inequality and contributing to more inclusive societies”, referring to UN SDG no. 10 All outputs will be tested in a TRAINING ACTIVITY, that will allow leading team members from the network of the partner consortium to improve their skills and that can also serve as model for future generations. PARTNER CONSORTIUM: The EMC has gathered 8 transnational cultural networks from diverse fields of culture to achieve the above mentioned aims, implement the proposed activities and produce the outputs SHIFT: TEH – Cultural Leadership FACE – Cultural Leadership ELIA – Environmental Sustainability IETM – Gender and Power-relations ECA-EC – Inclusion EMCY – Inclusion OTM – Cultural Leadership (Evaluation) IMC – Cultural Leadership (Digital Tools) EMC – Cultural Leadership (International Cooperation) The chosen networks are highly influential as they all work to increase the capacity of the members and to formulate policy recommendations. They are to a great extend recognised by political decision makers (on EU level, but also on local and national level). With their members, which often are networks themselves, they reach out to a large number of organisations in culture and can serve as multiplyers.
The partners strived to create simple guidelines, tools and recommendations that they firstly could apply in their organisations as well as share to their memberships and to the whole cultural sector. The SHIFT project aimed to reach a shifting point towards better trained cultural leaders, with regards to the SDGs. Indeed, the SHIFT publications seek to equip individuals professionally and personally to achieve these global challenges, by changing the way they perceive and act towards leadership, inclusion, power relations and our relationship to nature and climate. We wanted to use the enormous potential of the European and international cultural networks to make the necessary and urgent transformation towards sustainable societies and a cultural sector. The project met our objectives giving us and our members the possibility to achieve the following results: -Improve personal and professional development -Access to new tools to face challenges and adapt when needed -Increase knowledge about the SDGs and their relationship with the cultural sector -Improve capacity of staffs through the implementation of training activities with staff and members -Improve awareness about the role that cultural leaders have in their own organisation, but also in the relationship with the leaders of other organisations.
The SHIFT partners are European and international cultural networks and platforms, which have been cooperating together for a long time sharing similar challenges as networks in the cultural sector. Networks are specific ecosystems and even if the partners are different in terms of size and missions, some patterns of work are similar in terms of values, governance and forms of actions. In 2019, creating sustainable societies was a growing priority yet there was a lack of training available for cultural organisations on how to act on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030 and in particular SDG5 - Gender Equality; SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities and SDG 13 - Climate Action. Although these topics were not new to the partners, they had already been working towards better inclusion and gender equality as well as on climate action. So far, the work hadn’t been seen through the lenses of cultural leadership and on how leaders can lead the change in their organisations and throughout the cultural sector. There was a clear need to, first, share the knowledge among European cultural networks on the specific topics, and then to train the leadership of the European cultural networks on how to address and face the three very pressing and urgent challenges. The partners required new inspiration and guidance with concrete tools, and at the same time they created their own tools and ways to work on these subjects. The partners therefore applied for this project to educate themselves on the SDGs, to become self-reflective cultural leaders and raise awareness, turning cultural professionals into leaders on the topics. The methods and processes learned can be applied even beyond the three selected SDGs to the full spectrum of the goals. We believe culture can be a leader for positive societal change, and cultural networks can lead, filtering ideas and information across their memberships, across Europe, across the world.