“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein
As stated in the letter to the European Commission on behalf of Europe’s cultural and creative sectors, culture has always been a vibrant social resource, able to heal wounds in times of crisis. It carries tremendous intrinsic value and contributes significantly to the economy, with 4.2% of the EU GDP and 7.4 million jobs created. Culture is a vital component of the European integration and solidarity, uniting the European multitude of mentalities and histories in all their diversity, and shaping a common space for Europeans to develop a shared identity. However, nowadays, cultural and creative sectors (CCSs) themselves are among the most seriously damaged by the pandemic, being cultural activities halted, millions of jobs frozen or wiped out, and micro and small businesses on the brink of bankruptcy, among others.
Creative businesses not only have demonstrated to have a strong resistance to the crisis but also have an important role to play in generating growth and occupation and fighting unemployment while strengthening social cohesion, particularly for young people, but also for those adults who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, who can transform their creative skills into their own business.
In order to help the creative sector unlock their potential for growth and the transnational circulation of creative works and their ability to operate transnationally and reach new audiences in Europe and beyond, the EU responded with the Programme “Creative Europe”, considering the lack of efforts in providing aspiring and practicing creative people with knowledge and skills that increase their capacity to create and lead their creative entrepreneurial ventures. In such a framework, the Erasmus+ Creative Talent Factory (CTF) project came to life.
The general aim of the CTF project is to promote self-employment and entrepreneurship in the creative sector, and more precisely, will focus on the following creative areas: visual and performing arts; craftsmanship; art and antiques market; fashion; music and dancing.
The CTF project will be implemented in the following two years by six partners from Lithuania (EINC), Portugal (StoryTellMe), Serbia (BDCK), Slovenia (PIA), Italy (CESIE) and Greece (IDEC) which will work to achieve the CTF project’s objectives:
- to provide digital learning opportunities for adults, including those from disadvantaged background, empowering them towards access to upskilling pathways for creative entrepreneurship;
- to assess and monitor learners’ achievements in order to ensure the transparency and recognition of their creative entrepreneurial competences and skills;
- to offer an innovative easy-to-learn pathway for upskilling their creative entrepreneurial competences and skills needed to set up or improve a creative business;
- to widen and develop educators’ competences needed to support adult learners in becoming successful creative entrepreneurs.
During the next months, the project partners will develop a set of OERs “Creative Entrepreneurial motivation and empowerment” for aspiring entrepreneurs in the creative sector, which will include:
- Interactive readings “Why development of creative business is important to me?”
- Collection of video success stories
- E-book of the testimonial success stories
Through this set of OERs, the CTF project aims at providing aspiring or new entrepreneurs in the creative sector with attractive training materials for self-study, to deepen their understanding of the creative sector and have the tools, the motivation andthe inspiration necessary to prosper within the sector.
If you would like to learn more about the Creative Talent Factory project, please visit the project website or write to simona.palumbo@cesie.org.
