Leading Stakeholders in Europe present on January 27 at Intergroup Cultural and Creative Industries in European Parliament

Researchers, Entrepreneurs and Innovators from the cultural and creative sectors presented the latest research findings and best practices at a European Parliament hearing at the invitation of Pervenche Berès MEP and Christian Ehler MEP (pictured above), Co Chairs of the Intergroup Cultural and Creative Industries, on January 27th

Left to right: Bisera Savoska,Savion Ray, Brussels; Kasia Molga, PlanEt, London/Rotterdam; Lyudmila Petrova, University Utrecht; Erik Overmeire, PlanEt, London/Rotterdam; Jürgen Bertling, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Dortmund; Andrew Erskine, tom fleming / creative consultancy, London; Peter Aarts, Design Management Network, Amsterdam; Toby Dennett, Arts Council Ireland, Dublin; Jonathan Wickery, Warwick University, Warwick; Ivor Williams, Healthcare Innovation Centre (HELIX), London; Dawn Ashman, Arts Council England, Birmingham; Tsveta Andreeva, European Culture Foundation, Amsterdam; Isabelle Schwarz, European Culture Foundation, Amsterdam; Bernd Fesel, european centre for creative economy, Dortmund

Left to right: Bisera Savoska,Savion Ray, Brussels; Kasia Molga, PlanEt, London/Rotterdam; Lyudmila Petrova, University Utrecht; Erik Overmeire, PlanEt, London/Rotterdam; Jürgen Bertling, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Dortmund; Andrew Erskine, tom fleming / creative consultancy, London; Peter Aarts, Design Management Network, Amsterdam; Toby Dennett, Arts Council Ireland, Dublin; Jonathan Wickery, Warwick University, Warwick; Ivor Williams, Healthcare Innovation Centre (HELIX), London; Dawn Ashman, Arts Council England, Birmingham; Tsveta Andreeva, European Culture Foundation, Amsterdam; Isabelle Schwarz, European Culture Foundation, Amsterdam; Bernd Fesel, european centre for creative economy, Dortmund

The European Creative Business Network (ECBN) organised and selected high-level experts to attend the hearing: Dawn Ashman, Director Creative Industries, Arts Council England, presented the latest result of a Tom Flemming Consultancy study (Download here) about the first time ever European evidence base of around 100 cases of spillover effects: 17 sub-categories of spillover effects have been identified; current evaluation methods can not explain causality of public investments to these effects because of a gap in qualitative evaluation. The study was commissioned by the European Research Partnership consisting of the European Centre for Creative Economy, the European Culture Foundation, the Arts Council England, the Arts Council Ireland and Creative England. They called on the European Parliament to support a new holistic research agenda for the arts, culture and creative industries, balancing quantitative and qualitative methods. Isabelle Schwarz and Tsveta Andreeva, both from the European Culture Foundation, and Tobey Dennett, Arts Council Ireland, welcomed the understanding and support the ideas the Intergroup leaders signalled during the debate.

Martina Dlabajova, MEP, Board Member Intergroup Creative Industries.

Martina Dlabajova, MEP, Board Member Intergroup Creative Industries.

Health and Healing, Services Industries, Car and Computer Industries, Transportation and Mobility – in all sectors creative industries can be called the „steam-engine of 21st century“ (HRH Willem Alexander): This key message from Peter Aarts, Board Member of the Design Management Network in the Netherlands, and Consultant of ContentKings, Rotterdam, was the eye-opener to his presentation on the industrial effects of design and design thinking. Aarts not only recommend industrial projects like water cleansing projects, but more so, a method of thinking as being the heart of value creation in a know-how driven economy: Be empathic, Be curious, Embrace complexity, Be cooperative and Dare to fail: „Prototype“.

Following these general introductions about the state of research, the gaps in and economic successes of creative industries best practices in leading areas of spillover effects were presented. Jürgen Bertling, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Dortmund presented the industrial potentials of DIY production lines and citizen-based economies; Ivor Williams, Senior Designer at Healthcare Innovation Centre (HELIX) London, explained the concrete and immediate benefits of design in the health sectors – i.e. in improving asthma therapy for children and potentially saving thousands of lives; Bisera Savoska, Creative Director at Savion Ray, Brussels, told the story of curbing dyslexia and finally Kasia Molga and Erik Overmeire from World Wider Lab, Rotterdam/ London presented how an arts project invented a monitoring system of real-time urban pollution, called PlanET.

The hearing was also joined by leading European researchers – Prof. Jonathan Vickery, Warwick University, and Ludmilla Petrova, University Utrecht.

EU PM Spill Over Room

Bernd Fesel, senior advisor at the European Centre for Creative Economy, Dortmund, and managing director of ECBN – representing some 24 national agencies and intermediaries for cultural and creative sectors in Europe, amounting to 75% of the total cultural and creative workforce – calls on European policy makers to realise that a turning point in policy making for creative industries is at hand: Never before have so many leading national and regional leading institutions teamed up to drive the cause for more innovation in the cross-sectorial effects of cultural and creative industries and for more holistic research to better understand its causality.

Yet by now the pure dimension of spillover effects are undisputed: The value added and the turnover induced by cultural and creative industries outside the creative industries leads to thousands of jobs – as the research by NESTA and DCMS in 2015 „The Creative Economy Employment“ (Download here) proves. In the UK 570.000 creative occupations are already embedded in non-creative industries adding to 816.000 creative jobs in the creative industries itself. For Germany NESTA calculated around 800.000 creative occupations each in creative industries and non-creative industries (Table 8 / Table 9).

EU PM Spillover 4

ECBN: „The Fourth Industrial Revolution is in the making – from DIY production to green cars – and this is already the focus of the industrial policy of the European Union til 2020. Now it is time for the European Union to invest in the steam-engine driving the next big things in the industrial revolutions ahead: the cultural and creative industries.

ECBN calls on policy-makers to understand and accept the new faces and icons of these future Industries – they are no longer big and immobile infrastructures with immense sunk costs. The future infrastructures of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are just emerging, but they are obviously more immaterial and mobile then ever before. Industrial Policy also must re-invent and re-design itself before it is fit to support the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its steam-engine, the creative industries.

ECBN, 29. January 2016, Brussels