CLOSURE words

STIMULART ended in March 2022 after a 3-year period. In our project, we have found the GAPs in the small and medium-sized cities' local CCI ecosystem and Mapped the already available actors and potentials. We have collected and reviewed good practices at the local and national levels, and also, supported local decision-makers with strategies and action plans for future developments in urban planning. We implemented 5 PILOT projects and based on the knowledge gained during project implementation we have developed a CCI Repository handbook, in which you can find all of our best findings, tools, and methods, to be able to start tackling the stimulation of CCI in your own city.

Cultural and creative industries in a nutshell

 Text: dr. Olaf Kranz (University of Regensburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Management Information Systems) 
Term and idea of the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) are possibly best illustrated by an anecdote from Great Britain. Shortly after the Labour Party has been elected to power by a landslide victory in 1997, Tony Blair, then UK prime minister, hold a meeting with labour union representatives in order to explain to them “New Labour’s” new industry and economic policy turning from a focus on the traditional industrial sector to the service and financial sector. In order to legitimize this shift in focus, Blair told the unionists that he bet that the CCI would already add more value to the economy, employ more people, and export more value in goods and services than UK’s traditional industries like steel, cars, coal, ship production etc. The bet was placed...Read more here


CCI REPOSITORY HANDBOOK


One of the final products of Stimulart is the CCI Repository, which was intended to offer a wide range of good practices to adapt, use and learn from for the Stimulart partnership and for cities / municipalities of similar size and complexity in Central Europe. The Stimulart CCI Repository is the ultimate product of consistent collection and assessment of good practices arising from partners’ own research, direct experience with solutions, use of adapted new knowledge and also their creative “Stimulart-inspired” CCI products and practices. Thus, the publication presents the Stimulart pilot projects, some other local examples of the various, growing CCI sub-markets in the partner cities and also further exemplary solutions identified in small and medium size cities in the four partner countries. The publication also offers methodological explanations and a study, which compares CCI in the Stimulart partner cities, while a critical assessment of the potentials and obstacles of culture-driven urban strategies in this size category of urban settlements - as compared to metropolises and large cities as cradles of CCI by their core features - is also part of the Repository.

Summary of the CCI Repository (178 KB)

CCI Repository handbook in pdf (19 625 KB)

PILOTS of STIMULART


The StimulArt project PILOTs are successfully implemented. The PILOTs are mostly related a) to turn cultural heritage assets into creative products and services by developing local culture-based creativity and improving entrepreneurial and individual skills; b) to revitalize abandoned and underutilized infrastructure and urban spaces to be reintroduced as venues hosting or incubating CCI activities; c) to create a regional reference point for CCI start-ups and other innovators.

PILOT project of JÁSZBERÉNY (Summary and final results of the PILOT + final pilot evaluation + pilot business plan /HUN/)
PILOT project of KAMNIK (Summary and final results of the PILOT + Annex1BARUTANA executive summaryfinal pilot evaluation)
PILOT project of VITTORIO VENETO (Summary and final results of the PILOT + Executive summary and report + final pilot evaluation)
PILOT project of AMBERG (Summary and final results of the PILOT + final pilot evaluation)
PILOT project of NAUMBURG (Summary and final results of the PILOT + Pilot feasibility study in GERMAN/ENGLISHFestival report + Executive summary and report + final pilot evaluation


Newsletters

In the e-Newsletters we are, among other things, giving information about the implementation of StimulArt  activities of the partnership and CCI good practices from participating cities.

You can download the first e-Newsletter of STIMULART project in the next languages: 

English        Slovenian        Hungarian       German       Italian   

You can download the second e-Newsletter of STIMULART project in the next languages:  

English        Slovenian        Hungarian        German       Italian   

You can download the third e-Newsletter of STIMULART project in the next languages:  

English        Slovenian        Hungarian        German       Italian  

You can download the fourth (last) e-Newsletter of STIMULART project in the next languages:  

English        Slovenian        Hungarian        German       Italian 

ABOUT THE PROJECT

When compared to larger urban centres, mid-size cities are generally less successful in attracting high value-added, creative activities, innovative services and young talents. Economies of scale are only part of the reason. An outdated attitude towards funding and commercialising cultural and creative activities is another reason as well as a weak recognition of the creative potential of heritage and poor entrepreneurial skills of culture and creative industry (CCI) actors.

The STIMULART partner cities have a shared interest in enhancing CCI through a transformation of organisational and financing frameworks. They exploited during the project unexposed human and institutional capital, vacant urban infrastructure, and an obvious (but commercially often neglected) source of creativity: local culture.
The project combined macro- and micro-level interventions in a cohesive system. CCI actors were trained to adapt to a changing framework while industry requirements are fed back into policy development. The project built the capacity of CCI stakeholders in the participating cities with transnationally tested, universal tools and methods. These were made available in a comprehensive CCI repository. A transnational strategy and action plans were tested in pilot actions that include: a CCI mentoring system; a creative mechanism utilising vacant spaces; IT-based CCI networking; a fast-prototyping & user-testing facility; and a dedicated CCI Marketplace. 


ABOUT THE PROJECT PARTNERS

JÁSZBERÉNY

Jászberény is a mid-size Hungarian town (with 27 439 inhabitants) 80 km from Budapest. The city is a regional administrative center and with its wider region called Jászság it represents outstanding economic potentials by national standards. Electronics, plastic device manufacturing, services & retail dominate the economic profile attracting labourforce from as far as 100km.
Municipality of Jászberény, besides its ususal administrative tasks strives to further boost local economy, eagerly protects local heritage and runs versatile cultural services such as a local museum, art collections, a movie, a public library, a first-line, folk dance group. It also organizes international folk festivals, art symposiums as well as fairs of local / regional products such as honey.  Municipality of Jászberény is the lead partner (LP) of StimulArt thus it bears the responsibility of the overall management and several specified tasks. The expected benefit of the municipality is to learn good practices from the partners and to adapt and elaborate workable solutions for the CCI overall operational and financing models locally.
Jászkerület (JKER) is a non-profit company of public utility and one of the project partners in STIMULART.  JKER uses and maintains most cultural infrastructure owned by the Municipality and provides a wide variety of public services related to local culture and sports. It runs the library and a local movie, provides services in informal education, organises trainings for skill development, disseminates knowledge in e.g. the field of heritage or env.-al issues; protects the local cultural heritage, supports local cultural organizations, organizes sports events
and also tackles issues linked to the youth.
 
KAMNIK
Municipality of Kamnik (KAMMUN) is a local public authority, occupying an area of 266 km2 with approximately 30,000 inhabitants. Its responsibilities include: socioeconomic development, urban planning, traffic infrastructure, water supply, waste management, public safety and protection, housing, education, etc. The city itself is the cultural, administrative and business centre of the municipality. It runs several financing programmes related to CCI, it provides HR support to the Entrepreneurial Club of Kamnik, it supports KIKštarter, a co-working space and incubator which has helped initiate dozens of business ideas and hosted thousands of visitors.
Regarding its role in the project, KAMMUN is a full project partner and will therefore participate in all project events (meetings, training sessions, visits, co-working). Additionally, it will contribute to the Kamnik gap analysis, will play a significant role in the implementation of the Kamnik pilot and the development of Kamnik’s CCI strategy and action plan. Much of this will be done in partnership with the Institute for Tourism, Sports and Culture of Kamnik (KAMINS), an important CCI actor in Kamnik.
 
VITTORIO VENETO
Vittorio Veneto is a medium sized city (with an average of 28.100 inhabitants) which lies near the Prealpi Trevigiane (northern part of the Veneto Region between the Lagoon and the Dolomiti Mountains). The Municipality was created by uniting the two ancient towns: Ceneda and Serravalle, two important commercial and historical centers particularly important and well known in the medieval age.
 As Partner of the STIMULART Project, the Municipality of Vittorio Veneto will support the implementation of innovative governance models for public and private initiatives able to promote and involve the role of the CCIs for the local social and economic development.
 In particular the Municipality aims at creating favorable conditions for local urban regeneration processes and SMEs growth by promoting information exchange for possible public-private synergies verifying the interest of the industrial and handcraft sectors of the area, with regard to possible collaborations with other innovative sectors (cultural sector, creative art) in order to develop new opportunities and added value for the local productive sectors.
 
AMBERG
Amberg is a city in Bavaria with ~42,000 inhabitants. It is a regional centre and the third largest city in the administrative district of Upper Palatinate. Amberg has strong industrial and commercial sectors with advanced mechanical and electrical engineering particularly well represented. Just like in the rest of Bavaria though, CCI play an important role in the life and economy of the city and the local public administration wishes to support its further development via the StimulART Project. The City of Amberg is a full project partner and will participate in all project events, development of tools and deliverables as well as implement its own pilot project: a digital cooperation platform for CCI in Amberg.
 
UNIVERSITY OF REGENSBURG
Universität Regensburg (UREG), founded in 1962 as a regional university, has developed into a renowned centre of teaching and research with a strong tradition in international cooperations, particularly as bridge between East & West as exemplified by numerous partnerships with Central & Eastern European universities. The Chair of Leadership and Organisation of UREG's faculty for Business Studies is the scientific partner in the Stimulart project. Its role as a horizontal knowledge partner is to conduct basic research about the particular conditions of CCI development in medium sized cities, to provide sound methodological support as well as to ensure both smooth knowledge transfer among the partners and replicability of the final project results across similar cities in the EU. The common goal of the project is to enhance the local CCI eco systems through a change of organisational and financing frameworks that are aligned with both their national political and cultural framework and their site-specific cultural resources and city identities. In order to reach this goal the project plans to better employ human and institutional capital, vacant urban infrastructure, and an often neglected source of creativity: local culture and heritage.
 
NAUMBURG
Naumburg is a local public authority with a population of around 33,000 occupying 130km2 in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The main basis of the city’s economy is services and retail, but tourism — and cultural tourism in particular — is an important and growing sector. Naumburg will gain practical experience through the implementation of the pilot and the mapping of CCI in the town and, finally, develop a custom CCI strategy and action plan. An additional significant benefit will be an enhanced ability to retain and attract young professionals. Regarding the specific activities in the work plan, Naumburg is the coordinator of the deliverable “Development of CCI Repository”.

Project Partners

Our project has 9 partners from following countries:

Project duration

Start Date

01.04.2019

End Date

31.03.2022

Stimulart IN NUMBERS

2.517.222 EUR

9 Project partners
4 COUNTRIES

5 PILOT ACTIVITIES

5 STRATEGIES AND
ACTION PLANS
1 CCI REPOSITORY
HANDBOOK

contacts