10 EU cities and regions exploring Bologna’s support for creative businesses

The Culture for Cities and Regions project is organising a three-day study visit to Bologna (28-30 October 2015) to discuss IncrediBOL!, a good example of support for creative businesses born from a bottom-up initiative, now managed jointly by the city and a network of private partners. The study visit will aim at facilitating peer-learning between 20 representatives of cities and regions coming from all over Europe.

This follows in the footsteps of three previous study visits in:

• Nantes and its creative cluster at the heart of the city;
• Creative Wallonia and its holistic programme to rejuvenate the region through the creative economy;
• Nord-Pas de Calais on the regeneration dynamics around the Louvre-Lens.

Bologna boasts a vibrant cultural life and an emerging creative economy, with 8 creative hubs sprouting up over the city, and more than 26,500 cultural and creative companies in the Emilia-Romagna region.
Bologna was European Capital of Culture in 2000 and also a partner of Creative SpIN, an EU-funded project with 8 other cities to develop tools & methodologies to stimulate creative spillovers. A smart guide summing up the main steps was developed as an outcome of the project.

A delegation of 10 European cities or regions will exchange on Bologna’s experience on supporting creative entrepreneurship, coming from Aarhus (Denmark), Cesis (Latvia), Chemnitz (Germany), Denia (Spain), Irun (Spain), Magdeburg (Germany), Porto (Portugal), Pordenone (Italy), Sofia (Bulgaria), Utrecht (Netherlands). These high-level civil servants and policy-makers dealing with cultural and entrepreneurship policies have been selected after a call for expression of interest.

They will be accompanied by Philippe Kern (KEA managing director, and creative economy lead expert) and Peter Inkei (Budapest Observatory, and specialist in cultural policies), who will share their complementary expertise on the key themes for culture and creative industries policies that will be covered through the agenda of this visit:

• Supporting creative businesses & entrepreneurship: the IncrediBOL! initiative
• Access to finance for creative industries
• Creative industries as a driver of spillovers & innovation
• The creative city development – boosting attractiveness of territories

The full case study on Bologna is available here.

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