ekip Events

FROM POLICY TO ACTION 

Europe has the pieces. Now we connect them. 

Europe does not need another argument for why the cultural and creative industries matter. That argument has been won: the Culture Compass sets the direction, and in June the Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission signed a joint declaration committing the institutions to embedding culture across EU policies and funding tools. What Europe needs now is a way to put the creative and cultural industries to work inside its innovation ecosystems. 

Over more than three years, ekip has moved from identifying policy barriers to investigating them with ecosystems, developing recommendations, testing methods and building tools that turn complexity into action. What the work revealed is larger than any single recommendation. Europe already holds most of the capabilities it needs, in creative talent, research, industry, cities and regions, institutions, infrastructure and knowledge. Those capabilities do not consistently work as a connected system.

In Brussels in May, ekip put forward five recommendations for embedding the cultural and creative industries structurally within European innovation policy. Since then the Academy, the cases, the interviews, the foresight work and the ecosystem activities have carried the conversation from what needs to change to how change happens. In October, those strands come together across Rotterdam, Delft and Eindhoven.

The morning of 23 October is the point at which the work changes hands. It is not a results presentation and not a project retrospective. It is a working session about how an innovation policy platform creates value and competitiveness for Europe, and about who carries each part of it forward. Cities, regions, governments, universities, sector organisations and creative businesses can take what has been built, adapt it to their own realities and use it in their own policy journeys. 

The timing is useful. The legal texts and governance of the next generation of European programmes are still being written, and the terms on which the creative and cultural industries sit inside them are still being settled. 

The day is organised together with Dutch Design Foundation during Dutch Design Week, which brings more than 2,500 designers and around 300,000 visitors to Eindhoven over nine days. 

There are two separate registrations for this day. The morning session at NatLab Main Stage is registered through the button on the top of this page, and closes on 16 October at 16:00. 

The afternoon, CreativeNL Live with ClickNL from 16:00 to 19:30, is registered separately through this form. Those seats fill quickly, so book early if you want both. 

WHO THE MORNING IS FOR 

Five groups, each with a different reason to be in the room: 

• European and national policy carriers, who can move recommendations into policy. 

• Cities and regional ecosystem leaders, who can implement them locally. 

• Sector representatives and intermediaries, who can mobilise their industries. 

• Universities, research and innovation organisations, who can embed the methods and develop the knowledge. 

• The ekip community, who built this and will continue it. 

AGENDA

09:00 – Coffee and registration

09:30 – Welcome by ekip Read the ekip magazine

09:40 – Keynote

10:00 – Panel #1

10:45 – Panel #2

11:30 – Panel #3 

12:30–13:30 — Networking lunch 

13:30-16:00 visit DDW exhibitions at Strijp-S with recommendations by ekip. For this visit a DDW ticket is required, valid for 9 days: https://ddw.nl/en/tickets”

16:00–19:30 — CreativeNL Live with ClickNL, drinks and standing food (separate registration) 

DETAILED PROGRAM

Keynote: How do the cultural and creative industries contribute to the competitiveness of Europe? 

Three panels then take ekip’s findings and test them against the conditions in which they would have to work, with policymakers, creative professionals, platform leaders and academics in the same conversation.

Panel #1 – Passing the baton: from declaration to delivery 

Successive Presidencies and national governments have built an unusually strong political mandate for the creative and cultural industries. This panel is about the machinery that turns that mandate into standing practice, and about how the work travels from one Presidency to the next. 

The purpose is not to review commitments already made. It is to establish what delivery requires, and where the European level can carry weight that no single member state can carry alone. 

Background: ekip’s mapping of cultural and creative industry strategies across Europe 

Panel #2 – Universities as ecosystem builders 

Fourth-generation universities set out to develop the innovation ecosystems around them. Can they carry the ekip Building Blocks that the creative and cultural industries need from an ecosystem? 

Ecosystems run on infrastructure, and universities are among the few actors positioned to host it over the long term. This panel establishes what they can realistically take on and what has to sit elsewhere. 

Background: ekip’s Building Blocks recommendations – coming soon 

Panel #3 – The roles that don’t exist yet 

New roles are emerging across the creative and cultural industries. How do we use what we now know about them so that communities and institutions can evolve with them? 

The work is already being done in practice. Job titles, funding lines and qualifications have not yet caught up with it. 

Background: the ten new personas and roles identified through ekip’s trend reports 

THE EVIDENCE ON THE TABLE 

Nothing in the programme is theoretical. The conversation draws on work that has already been done somewhere: 

• Breda, a Dutch ecosystem working to integrate the creative and cultural industries structurally. 

• The Basque Country, evidence of what longer-term ecosystem development looks like. 

• Fashion and textiles across Lund, Milan and Rotterdam, where policy has moved into portfolio approaches and city prototyping. 

• Performing arts in Tampere and Stockholm, two local pathways towards the same ambition. 

• The ekip Academy, where teams arrived with real policy challenges, worked across disciplines and left with plans for their own ecosystems. 

• The building blocks and cross-analysis, setting out what a functioning ecosystem actually requires. 

• The foresight work, on where creative innovation policy has to look next. 

 THE RECOMMENDATIONS 

The five strategic recommendations ekip presented in Brussels: 

1. Integrate and embed the cultural and creative industries structurally across the upcoming EU programmes, horizontally and vertically.
2. Break down policy silos and strengthen cross-policy approaches.
3. Redesign innovation ecosystems around open innovation, built for how the creative and cultural industries actually work.
4. Shift to funding models that integrate creativity and innovation, through portfolio-based financing and investment, with intermediaries acting as orchestrators.
5. Build a long-term European foresight capacity so that innovation policy for the sector stays ahead of the curve. 

Explore the full recommendations → What Should Europe Do Next? 

WHAT YOU TAKE AWAY 

The full body of work: the recommendations, the mapping of national strategies, the building blocks, the ten emerging roles, the tested methods for policy labs and city prototyping, and the Knowledge Bank behind all of it. Everything is free to use, adapt and cite. 

You also take away the people. The consortium behind ekip includes five universities, four cultural and innovation consultancies, four cultural and creative organisations, four cities and more than fifty network organisations. The networking lunch runs to 13:30, and CreativeNL Live with ClickNL continues the conversation from 16:00.  

WHY THIS DAY 

ekip is reaching the end of its funded life. The need it was created to address has only become more urgent. Europe needs stronger connections between creativity, research, industry, policy and place, and practical ways of turning those connections into action. 

October is therefore not a conclusion. It is a handover of knowledge, methods, recommendations, relationships and responsibility. ekip began by asking how the cultural and creative industries could become a structural part of Europe’s innovation system. It ends by giving Europe a way to make it happen. 

We asked. We learned. We built it. Now, use it. 

More information on the keynote speaker and panellists will follow. 

Registration for the morning session closes on 16 October at 16:00 register here , or at the bottom of the page. CreativeNL Live in the afternoon is registered separately. 

The ekip partners look forward to meeting you in Eindhoven on 23 October.  

Core concepts behind the programme: The Swarm logic: https://ekipengine.eu/europe-has-the-talent-what-it-lacks-is-smart-activation/ Open Innovation 3.0: https://knowledge-bank.ekipengine.eu/resource/open-innovation-3-0-empowering-europe-through-cultural-and-creative-industries/ Strategic recommendations: https://ekipengine.eu/what-should-europe-do-next/ 

About Dutch Design Week

Dutch Design Week (DDW) is about the design of the future and the future of design. Over nine days, Eindhoven fills with creativity and ideas, across more than 120 locations — exhibitions, lectures, award ceremonies, debates, and gatherings. DDW showcases the work of over 2,500 designers and draws more than 300,000 visitors from around the world.

DDW is committed to developing and exchanging expertise and talent, and explicitly invites different perspectives. As the design profession turns increasingly to social and other relevant issues, five missions frame what society needs and what drives designers: Thriving Planet / Living Environment / Digital Futures / Health & Wellbeing / Equal Society.

Dutch Design Foundation (DDF) connects designers and clients, accelerates research and creation, and provides an international platform through Dutch Design Week — while inspiring businesses, governments, and organisations to use design as a driver of innovation and societal transition.

www.ddw.nl

www.dutchdesignfoundation.com

About the ekip innovation policy platform

ekip is a Horizon Europe funded flagship project designed to boost innovation capacity in ecosystems by including the Cultural and Creative Industries — the missing piece. Creatives are not “nice to have.” Their competences are essential for driving progress on the green and digital transformation and social inclusion, and for handling complex innovation processes with diverse stakeholders.

Rooted in Open Innovation, ekip brings broad stakeholder groups together to co-create evidence-based policy recommendations, shaping ecosystems where collaborative, cross-sector, and open innovation are standard practice. ekip is run by a European consortium of 5 universities, 4 cultural and innovation consultancy firms, 4 cultural and creative organisations, 4 cities, and over 50 CCI network organisations.