EUROPEAN CREATIVE HUBS NETWORK announces its first Forum – HOW WORK WORKS

The partners of the European Creative Hubs Network project are pleased to announce the first European Creative Hubs Forum. The event organized by the leading hub in the Balkan region – Nova Iskra from Belgrade, Serbia –  will take place at the Yugoslav Film Archives in Belgrade from September 22nd to 24th, 2016. It will bring together 100+ managers and representatives of European hubs and creative and entrepreneurial communities from more than 20 countries, as well as all relevant organizations and stakeholders from Serbia and the region of South-Eastern Europe.

An open call for participation is currently running for all interested hub leaders, managers or representatives from across Europe. The deadline to apply is July 20^th2016.

Creative hubs have become new models for creative enterprises to grow, and invaluable mechanisms of change and assets to the creative sector. Creative hubs are uniquely diverse in structure, sector and services, qualifying them as a great driver for growth, competitiveness and innovation in the creative industries. They range from collective and co-operative, to labs and incubators; and can be static, mobile or online. In addition to encouraging collaboration, generating distinctive cultural practice, and offering much needed exhibition and events space, they also bring added value to agendas in regeneration, tourism, inward investment and educations.

The European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN) is a project co-funded by the European Commission, led by the British Council in partnership with a consortium of European creative hubs, Bios in Greece, Addict in Portugal, betahaus in Germany, Kulturni Kod/Nova Iskra in Serbia, Creative Edinburgh in the UK, Factoria Cultural in Spain, and the European Business Network (EBN). 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.

Through this project, Creative Hubs managers from Europe will be able to connect with peers and gain access to a community of hubs, visit and learn from creative hubs across Europe, exchange best practice and strengthen skills, as well as learn about successful and sustainable business models.

How Work Works – European Creative Hubs Forum

Through its central question and theme – HOW WORK WORKS – the forum will investigate the shifting paradigm of work as seen through the prism of creative hubs. The forum aims to map out the diverse eco-system of hubs, and to showcase the richness, diversity and importance of the European hub landscape, having in mind that these organizations play a key role in supporting young entrepreneurs and creative professionals across the continent, as well as beyond the borders of EU.

Beside offering inspiring and insightful keynotes by leading scholars from Europe and Serbia, some of which will be open to the general public, the conference will create a space for networking and sharing of experience between hub managers through three key sessions, dedicated to various aspects of Space, Community and BusinessModels. The working sessions of the conference will also be followed by more informal networking formats, free consultations for local and international experts, visits to the local cultural venues and hubs, optional field trips and other special programs.

Call for participation

An open call for participation at the forum is announced, with the aim to showcase the hub diversity across Europe and offer hub organizations a chance to network, learn and grow partnerships. The European Creative Hubs Forum will come in a condensed format, gathering a maximum number of 150 participants, in order to allow effective direct face-to-face interactions. The official working language of the conference will be English.

The organizers are aiming to enable participants to share personal experiences and thoughts in an environment that caters for a smaller audience and which will include several group work activities, in order to maximise participants’ opportunities to share with their peers. For accepted applicants, the organizers will be able to cover expenses for one representative per organization, which will include travel costs to and from Belgrade and accommodation costs for Sept 23rd and 24th. The full forum agenda will be announced in August.

If you are interested in  participating in the first ECHN forum in Belgrade, please fill in the registration form http://bit.ly/1XKeBQc no later than Wednesday, July 20th 2016 by 23:59 hrs (GMT+1). 

(The organizers reserve the right to run a selection process of participants based on the registration forms, should the number of interested parties be higher than expected. In case that your application is approved, you will be contacted by Nova Iskra staff no later than August 1st in order to organize the logistics).