Europe’s cultural and creative sectors (CCS) are not “nice-to-haves”. They represent a unique source for Europe’s ambition to steer the triple transition (green, digital, just) and to remain competitive in a fast-transforming world. However, they are often overlooked in innovation and industrial policies. With our work in the Horizon Europe project ekip we aim to broaden perspectives on the role that CCS (can) play in innovation in Europe.

Since June 2023, IDEA Consult is part of the EU-funded (Horizon Europe) project ekip. Together with 16 partner organisations across Europe – led by Lund University, we collaborate to re-think current innovation ecosystems in Europe and make them more inclusive towards cultural and creative sectors.

What ‘mainstreaming’ of CCS in innovation policy could bring

Since we started with ekip, multiple analyses and dialogues with stakeholders – sector representatives, innovation actors, policy makers, etc. – have demonstrated that investing in Europe’s adaptive capacity — economically and socially – is not only about investing in scientific and technological excellence. Cultural and creative actors bring in critical, complementary skills and perspectives:

• CCS actors often work at the intersection of art, technology, social practice and business — a fertile ground for novel combinations and creative problem-solving.  By including these actors, innovation policy can access new kinds of ideas and approaches.
• Through design thinking, community-oriented approaches, heritage, arts and media, CCS contribute to climate action, social inclusion, identity-building and wellbeing in ways that traditional industrial or technological innovation seldom can.

However, policy frameworks remain strongly siloed – cultural policy developing largely separated from innovation policy, resulting in underinvestment in CCS in innovation policies. As a result, the ability of cultural and creative actors to contribute to innovation and broader societal challenges remains underutilised.

How we contribute to new innovation policy development with ekip

Over the initial 18 months, we have worked on several activities in parallel. At IDEA Consult, we have focused on analysing the current roles of CCS in different innovation context – from their role in the green transition to crafts-led innovation and cross-innovation with performing arts – and co-designing evidence-based policy recommendations to strengthen their role, together with other consortium partners. At the same time, other partners developed methodological documents and instruments useful for anyone working on cultural-innovation policy, tested the policy recommendations in pilot cities, built an ekip Knowledge Bank with curated resources on the topic of open innovation with CCS, etc. With the recently launched ekip campaign “Creatives are the missing piece” we aim to raise wider awareness of the valuable but often-overlooked role that they can play in innovation systems and making the triple transition – digital, green, just – happen in Europe.

In the meantime, the ekip website has grown into a wealthy source of information for anyone interested to find out more about the role of CCS in innovation and looking for practical tools and methods to start changing perspectives on the role of culture in innovation policy. We invite you to explore it at Homepage – ekip Engine.

Do you want to know more about ekip or do you have further questions at the intersection of culture and innovation? Contact us!