Idea

Collab 4 HySust seeks to enhance the capacity of European cultural and creative sectors to innovate and generate sustainable, inclusive growth. A key goal is to evidence the important role of CCI incubation processes where innovation can happen and lead to sustainable change. Experiences of partnering organisations locally demonstrate that by transforming CCI organisations one influences the communities with which they are in direct relation and which they co-create. The project will impact both local level, supporting the creative ecosystem, and horizontal European level by facilitating the transfer of knowledge among different EU regions and among organisations with unique needs.

The coming years will demand more and widely different organizations to continue experiments of establishing new bonds with the local communities – that are also changing due to conflict-driven, health- induced, post-industrial and other forms of migration. In Collab 4 HySust CCI we recognise the needs of CCI organisations to embrace more and more cross-sectoral business approaches in order to maintain the already integrated participatory approach to cultural practices. These are coupled with the need to collect and manage data about participants, keep track of outreach impact and maintain a dynamic view on audience engagement. To achieve this, the teams need new tools and skills, for instance to make use of the hybrid format of the creative value chain – working with the public in situ and online and delivering new content.

WHY?

For the last two years, the European cultural landscape has been confronted with the issue of resilience in a spectacular fashion. Small and micro-sized cultural and artistic organizations, as well as mid-sized museums and galleries, and even bigger public institutions, have had to strengthen links with their regular audiences and rethink how they reach new ones (including online) without alienating current devoted audiences. CCIs’ entrepreneurial abilities are becoming more strongly tied with data-driven initiatives, which are most commonly used in areas like as cultural tourism and music. Some areas, such as the performing arts, are experiencing a digital change in a different way, but they are also extending their potential to reach digital audiences. In March 2022 the consortium conducted a survey among CCI organisations from Italy, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Denmark, asking them to rate the importance of addressing crossover needs areas in their work choosing among: sustainability, resilience, digitalisation and inclusion. The 54 surveyed organisations including also a couple of responses from France and Poland demonstrated high interest in working on issues related to digitalisation, inclusion, sustainability and resilience.
The conclusion of survey clearly shows that crisis situations such as the COVID-19-related restrictions on ‘normal’ cultural and economic activities or, more recently, the negative impact of conflict in neighbouring EU regions, provoke change. However, projects supporting the CCI sector in such circumstances often stop short at the ideation phase and the experimental value faces problems of sustainability due to lack of internal capacity or lack of policy support for addressing cross-cutting priorities.
CCI organizations confront this situation in many EU countries, including Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia, where a cultural or creative incubator is still a distant dream for artistic and creative organizations. These countries’ innovation may potentially be a focus for start-ups in other industries (particularly fintech, automation, science, etc.). CCIs are a driving force for change and are related to sustainability, according to national and municipal authorities in Italy throughout different areas, as well as in the North of Europe (in Denmark). Even still, options for incubation addressing emergent demands, such as the issue of living in a world where people are displaced owing to a global epidemic or conflict, are limited

How?

Since 2020 the 5 partners in Collab 4 HySust CCI have developed a number of valuable pilots and demonstrators of structured experiments that have led to clear, measurable results. Most importantly, they have developed know-how and processes that can be shared. In Collab 4 HySust CCI we will demonstrate experience and structure a process to scale these efforts to the EU level. This would allow 15 cultural and artistic initiatives from different European countries to work within two needs areas: 1. Audiences and Hybrid Approaches and 2. Sustainability in Processes of Collaboration. The project will enable select CCIs to:

1) Identify and formulate a need in the priority areas addressed by the project
2) Benefit from guidance using dedicated expert support matching the identified need
3) Benefit from a microgrant to undertake an incubation-based prototyping effort leading to a demonstration or improved result for future implementation
4) Benefit from shared know-how and direct networking as an EU added value

Utilizing the capacity of the partners and their networks, Collab 4 HySust will pay attention to the fact that effective reconnect initiatives need systematic focus and internal reorganization of resources – both access to new or re-use of neglected assets accessible to the organisations. The initiative creates a channel for the cultural and creative industries to contribute to the European Green Deal by pushing its operators to adopt more ecologically friendly practices and to collaborate with their audiences to develop resilient communities.