Making a case for the Cultural and Creative Sector
According to the Structural Fund guidelines, culture is not expected to help economic development underway. Its likely contribution to the promotion of creativity and innovation is not pointed out, and its relationship with the knowledge economy is not mentioned either. An overall vision for a coherent and systematic contribution from the sector to issues addressed by Cohesion policy appears to be absent. The subsequent analysis, however, examines the actual contributions of culture-based interventions against the whole range of Structural Fund objectives and reveals a different story.
Culture can stimulate at least four Structural Fund goals
The overall aim of this study has been to present a
comprehensive account of the variety of impacts resulting from
culture-based interventions in regional development processes.
Between 2007 and 2013, EU expenditure for culture under Cohesion
policy is planned to be more than € 6 billion, representing 1.7% of
the total Structural Fund budget.
Culture based interventions can further several goals which are set
in the objectives of the structural funds:
- Making Europe and its Regions More Attractive Places in which to Invest and Work: in the cases of ‘Zollverein’ in the Ruhr district and ‘Musikpark Mannheim’ cultural action was coupled to the development of various types of business support;
- Developing a Culture-based Strategy and Promoting Territorial Cohesion: the project ‘Creative Clusters in Smaller Urban Environments’ pondered the questions to what degree culture-led development can also thrive outside urban centres;
- Knowledge and Innovation for Growth: the Digital Culture projects in Latvia and Luxembourg illustrate that cultural content can promote digital inclusion and can become cross cultural resources available to the community at large;
- More and Better Jobs: ‘Kunstwerk(t)’ in the Netherlands made a
contribution to skills development, and promoted labour market
access for disadvantaged and difficult-to-reach social groups.
Cultural Activity is at the heart of the creative economy
Thus, contrary to what the Guidelines suggested, this study
shows that culture-based projects can accomplish more that
'making Europe and its regions more attractive places in which
to invest and work' only. In fact, the study shows
culture-based projects are capable of not only improving the
structural conditions of lagging regions, but also of contributing
directly to competitiveness and employment creation.
That is why the study concludes with several recommendations in
order to exploit the competitive advantage that the creative
sectors represent:
- The potential contribution of the creative sector to Europe 2020 needs to be better articulated and its impacts across the full range of Structural Fund objectives acknowledged and promoted further;
- This should be supported by further analysis of the contribution that culture-based interventions are making to the knowledge economy and innovation employment creation and social cohesion;
- The potential role of culture in promoting creativity,
motivating entrepreneurship and improving communication needs to be
explored further.
Publication date
September 2010
Document type
Research Document
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