Europe INNOVA - Partnerships for better innovation support

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European Creative Industries Alliance kicks off in Milan, 26-28 February 2012!  

The European Creative Industries Alliance is ready for the official launch! It will be kick-started during the Innovation Festival (IF) Finale under the PRO INNO Europe® Initiative,  26-28 February 2012 in Milan, Italy. The start of the Alliance is eagerly awaited by the European creative industries community since it was first proclaimed at the beginning of 2010 when the Amsterdam Declaration was adopted. The initiative was also announced in the European Commission’s Green Paper on “Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries”, and it forms part of both the "Innovation Union"  and "An Integrated Industrial Policy for the Globalised Era" flagships.

The European Creative Industries Alliance (ECIA) is not a single project but a policy initiative composed of a Policy Learning Platform and eight concrete actions. The Policy Learning Platform will provide the Alliance with a "recognisable face", involve a large and broad stakeholder community and build upon the best available expertise and knowledge with a view to preparing concrete master plans and roadmaps for large-scale support of creative industries in Europe. An open call for the expression of interest for members to join the policy learning platform and to select a spokesperson for ECIA will be published shortly by the founding consortium of 6 major European cities led by the city of Amsterdam.

The concrete actions will aim at testing better service innovation support through innovation voucher schemes, access to finance, and cluster excellence and cooperation.  The concrete actions will seek high impact by mobilising additional funds for creative industries, reaching out and involving SMEs and thus contributing to job creation. Their results will feed into the strategic policy debate and work of the Policy Learning Platform on how to better support creative and other emerging industries in Europe.  

Four ECIA actions will design and implement innovation voucher schemes to provide business support to creative industries' companies and will stimulate a greater uptake of creative industries services, capabilities and knowledge by other industries. Three of the vouchers schemes will support the demand for creative industries' services and will help traditional industries (i.e. domestic appliances, tourism and agri-food) to access such services and one scheme will offer business support services to creative industries. At least 80 companies will benefit directly from innovation vouchers, with an average value of €5000 granted per voucher. These four actions will altogether involve business service providers and creative industries from 13 EU countries. The results of these pilot actions will feed into broader regional and national discussions on how future business support in general, and for creative industries in particular, should be planned and implemented in order to increase the innovation capacity and the value creation in creative industries and in those industries that are or could be directly benefiting from a close cooperation with creative industries. 

Another two actions will address the need of creative industries for better access to finance. They will especially work towards improving the conditions of access to finance for young innovative services start-ups; setting up specific investment readiness coaching networks and establishing an early stage European venture capital fund for creative industries. Moreover, the pilot actions will aim to set up two EU-wide integrated platforms linking “crowd and guarantee funding” with investors. Information on one of the two actions, FAME, has already been published on the Europe INNOVA website, you can read more about it by following this link.

Finally, two actions will work towards better supporting creative industries through developing cluster excellence and collaboration. Specific actions will be aimed at testing new cooperation approaches between creative industries' clusters and with clusters from other industries, as well as focus on activities such as training, coaching and mentoring of cluster managers from creative industries and SMEs working with creative industries. Cross-sectoral linkages between creative-and other industries will be further promoted through matchmaking events. Overall, 10 cluster organisations from creative industries across Europe will take part in these two concrete actions.

Much more information and details will be revealed at the ECIA launch during the IF Finale in Milan. High-level policymakers and practitioners will come together to discuss the transformative power of creativity and how it can facilitate entrepreneurship, structural change and spill-overs into other industries!

To be part of the ECIA launch on 26-28 of February and to contribute to the discussions on the future of creative industries, please follow this link for more information on the programme and to register for the conference.