Cities Project

Summary

The project named Creative Industries in Traditional Intercultural Spaces (CITIES) addresses Priority 1 of INTERREG IV C Programme (sub-theme: entrepreneurship and SMEs). The duration of the project is 36 months, from October 2008 to September 2011.

The project aims through interregional cooperation to improve regional and local policies addressing the promotion and support of creative and cultural industries, as one of the most significant growth sectors for the European economy in terms of GDP and added value.

According to the European Commission’s report ‘Culture and the Economy’ (2006), the creative industries have a growing relevance to the European competitiveness, sustainability and social cohesion: they represented 2.6% of the GDP of the EU in 2003 and 3.1% of employment in 2004.

Objectives

CITIES project aims at:

improving regional and local policies addressing creative and cultural sectors;
helping to restructure regions mostly dependent on traditional industries, including renewal of industrial zones for new start-ups;
getting an overview of what other European regions from partners cities have done to develop creative and cultural industries;
growing culture’s impact on region’s economy by encouraging interregional creativity and diversity of cultures;
supporting regional business clusters in creative and cultural industries field;
promoting of re-conversion of traditional sectors into more knowledge-intensive sectors such as creative and cultural industries;
strengthening of cooperation between state, private, nongovernmental institutions in creative and cultural industries sector.