Creative and cultural entrepreneurship (CCE) is deemed to innovate the traditional outdated startups with new models, new practices and new governance structures in which the role of society will be enhanced in order to boost social cohesion, mitigate groups at risk and create new job opportunities. On top of this, CCE brings direct added value to promoting culture, cities, places and thus tourism, with an imminent impact on active citizenship and inclusive societies (Abbing, 2016). Nevertheless, there is limited evidence of emphasis being put on CCE in Europe overall (EC, 2018). Training and education are crucial determinants of inappropriately competitive advantage and profitability concerning entrepreneurship and innovation in creative and cultural industry in European and developing countries. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are playing a key role in shaping the next generation of CCE by providing the necessary training aimed at building the proper skills of potential cultural & creative entrepreneurs to achieve a proper startup & scaleup with their idea (and not be limited only to the startup stage). This is of critical importance within the European Union as the majority of startups do not achieve a proper scale-up stage and this is widely due to lack of proper training to access the required resources and networks that would ensure the scaleup. As entrepreneurship is a very dynamic field, HEI teachers & trainers are required to always co-create (transnationally) with entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, policy makers and society in order to ensure that their curricula are infused with the proper knowledge that would ensure the success of their graduates (Chesbrough, 2016). At this stage, in the field of CCE, such co-creation is widely absent – justifying thus, firstly, the limited CCE course offerings within European HEIs, and secondly, the lack of effectiveness of the existing (few) courses in terms of yielding successful CCE. Therefore, TraCCE adopts a transnational & multi-stakeholder approach in order to build a think-tank in CCE through a cross-country blending of complementary expertise towards developing (through open innovation & quadruple/quintuple helix co-creation): a higher education CCE Curriculum and a CCE Train the Trainers Toolkit that will be offered to academia & the CCE community (open access) through a virtual learning environment and piloted through two international workshops. TraCCE will build upon the following CCE skills in order to mitigate the confirmed skill-gap: CCE Opportunities & Idea Identification, including: CCE market opportunities identification, CCE pre-seed development, CCE business models for start-ups, developing partnerships / networks among creative and cultural entrepreneurs, sustainability & responsibility of creative and cultural entrepreneurs, CCE Scale-up and globalisation strategies (the notion of scaleup is of top priority for the EU startup scene), next-generation trends for creative and cultural entrepreneurs, CCE Case studies, including real life CCE examples, good and best practices. Such skills will include also advanced digitalisation abilities. Overall, these skills comply with the EU recommendations of skill-provisions from: SKILL GAP INDEX 2019, CEDEFOP’s report on Responsible Skill Promotion (2016); OECD’s report on Digital Entrepreneurship Skills for Young Entrepreneurs (2015); EU Commission’s JRC Report on 2035 Sustainable Economy (2015); EU’s EPALE platform report on Sustainable Business Skills (2017); EU Commissions New Skill Agenda for Europe (2016); WEF Report on Graduate Skills for Enterprise (2016). Additionally, TraCCE is aligned with the goals of Strategic Partnerships for academia-market-society collaboration and the promotion of innovation and best practices, of providing open education and innovative practices in a digital era, with the Headline Education Target and with the EU Higher Education Modernisation Agenda by providing incentives for higher education internationalization, market-oriented curriculum development, and co-creation with business through integrated features that will lead on the long term of better involvement and support from the market side to academia. On top of this, TraCCE contributes to the social & economic development of the EU by promoting the EU heritage and fostering social inclusion through cultural & creative entrepreneurship. Key numbers include: 80 EU-wide academic staff (different institutions) that will incorporate the CCE curriculum & train the trainers toolkit; 100 CCE stakeholders to be trained during the four international workshops; 35 EU & beyond CCE associations that will gain an open-innovation & quadruple/quintuple helix co-creation best practices; 700 registrants of the virtual learning environment, 300 CCE stakeholders/participants in the multiplier evens, 500 participants with fewer opportunities involved in the project, 48 000 people reached through dissemination.
The end-goal was to introduce the first MSc course in CCE co-created with academics, market and policy makers that would respond to the regional/real needs of the CCE sectors in the 4 countries. This was aimed at better supporting the involved countries to foster CCE, ensure that this sector grows in terms of products/services/revenues and boost the attractiveness of the cultural heritage. Ultimately, this initiative substantially impacted on the implementation of Timisoara EU Capital of Culture 2023 by providing high quality educational materials for prospective CCE while also spurring spin-off projects that continued the movement of CCE with digitalisation and acceleration services.
The consortium applied for this project in order to revolutionize the potential of higher education institutions to deliver MSc programmes and modules in cultural and creative entrepreneurship (CCE) in existing higher education programmes in order to help their regions’ capacities to foster such ventures. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are playing a key role in shaping the next generation of CCE by providing the necessary training aimed at building the proper skills of potential cultural & creative entrepreneurs to achieve a proper startup & scaleup with their idea (and not be limited only to the startup stage). As entrepreneurship is a very dynamic field, HEI teachers & trainers are required to always co-create (transnationally) with entrepreneurs, mentors, investors, policy makers and society in order to ensure that their curricula are infused with the proper knowledge that would ensure the success of their graduates. Therefore, given the current gap in this field, our initial needs analysis in CCE course delivery consisted of: entrepreneurial behaviour; teamwork; decision making; design thinking; business planning; income generation; digital skills; national & international networking; CCE ideation, digitalisation, intercultural skills; and social and environmental accountability. Overcoming such needs with a CCE curriculum helped the partnership to better contribute to their regional priorities such as: Timisoara EU Capital of Culture 2023, offering open access CCE training to local potential entrepreneurs in culture/creativity, and reskilling adults and existing performers in CCE.