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8 Apr 2019

The first General Assembly of the EUROPEAN CREATIVE HUBS NETWORK

The three-day gathering for the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) will be held from April 11th to 13th in Athens. It is the first annual meeting of the newly-established network of European creative hubs, as well as the launch of Creative FLIP, the first major project that the network is involved in. Belgrade-based Nova Iskra is one of the founding members of the network and played a key role in its establishment.

The partners of the Creative FLIP project are pleased to announce the Opening Conference of the project in Athens, Greece. The event will take place from April 11th to 13th in Athens and will in parallel host the European Creative Hubs Network first annual General Assembly. The Creative FLIP Opening Conference will highlight the question of how to improve the existing ecosystem for CCIs, with specific focus on Finance, Learning, Innovation and Patenting.

A full programme of plenary meetings, workshops and activities will aim to generate ideas on how to strengthen CCIs’ capacities for growth and development through improved access to finance, value recognition, and capacities to capture value from IP.  It will also strive to connect the CCI with other sectors by demonstrating the transversal relevance of skills and expertise related to creative thinking. The conference will also present respected keynote speakers: Myrsini Zorba (the Greek Minister of Culture and Sports), Sir Peter Cook (the founder of the legendary, avant-garde architectural collective Archigram) and Olga Mink (the director of Baltan Laboratories from Eindhoven). The conference also takes place under the patronage of the European Parliament.

Creative FLIP – Finance, Learning, Innovation and Patenting for Cultural and Creative Industries is a pilot project co-funded by the EU, and implemented by a consortium led by the Goethe-Institut in partnership with IDEA Consult, VVA Brussels, 3s Unternehmensberatung, Institut de la Propriété Intellectuelle Luxembourg and European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN). The general objective of this pilot project is to define and test policies and actions for sustaining and developing cultural and creative industries and to generating cross-sectoral benefits and spill-overs in the different areas and sectors the CCIs interface with.

European Creative Hubs Network is a peer-led network with a mission to enhance the creative, economic and social impact of hubs. It is the first network in Europe specifically tailored to support physical spaces that host and provide services to multiple creative businesses. ECHN aims to enhance the ecosystem that supports the development and growth of the creative and cultural sector by supporting the subsistence and growth of creative hubs in Europe, creating a community of experienced creative hubs leaders across Europe from a variety of sectors and promoting hubs as innovative models to support the creative economy in Europe.