ACE Creative is an ambitious project aimed at stimulating the growth of the ICT driven creative industries in Europe. By harnessing a network of innovation support player coming from 15 EU countries we will contribute to creating an ecosystem that will respond more effectively to the needs of creative companies. Over the next 2 years ACE Creative aims to expand this network to include at least 1 innovation support actor in each of the 28 EU member states.

To this end, ECBN has partnered with 10 other partners, equally strong in European innovation. The consortium includes our friends at EBN, BWCON, Media Deals, META Group, CEEI Asturias, Noribic, Novitech, CKO, the Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision as well as our very own Associate Member Technoport.

By means of an annual competition, ACE Creative will provide Customised Support Programmes (CSPs) to 100 SMEs (50 each year) to support their growth into new European markets. The top 30 companies (15 each year) will win an expenses paid trip to pitch to an audience of international investors at the Creative Business Cup finals. Up to a further 400 SMEs will have the chance to participate in one of 15 ACE’Creative international bootcamps being staged across Europe in 2015 and 2016 and a total of 1000 SMEs will benefit from the ACE Creative online support platform.

Two specific groups of SMEs are targeted: creative industry SMEs exploiting advanced technologies and ICT SMEs innovating in the field of creative industries. The ACE Creative service offering will be accessible online and ‘on-site’ in 15 EU partner and associate partner countries with a target of engaging further stakeholders to deliver the support services in all EU member states by the end of the project. This project will surely create tangible impact for individual SMEs, for innovation support actors and for the growth of the European creative industries as a whole.