<< Objectives >>By developing this project we would like to bring adults and museums together in an innovative Europe and finding new ways of engaging with creative skills in a digital world and community development. We also want to build a strong and rooted analysis on the state of the art of cultural innovation in museums following the pandemic, starting from the main museum learning programs in Turkey and in Denmark.<< Implementation >>The program of events is foreseen to take place during the 8 months of project duration. There will be an international and online thematic webinar (English); 2 online workshops (Turkish & English); a training program (Turkish & English); developing a creative business opportunities for the participants, as well as the online community of the project.<< Results >>We expect an increase in the digital use of museums in Turkey and Denmark, by providing museum educators and related staff with the knowledge and skills needed to innovate the value proposition of European museums. The training programs, the webinars, the creative business opportunities for the participants, as well as the online community of the project will represent key resources to improve the work of all the stakeholders involved in the project.

The SPECTRA proposal embodies the collaborative vision of 8 partners (including 3 associate partners) representing 4 regional ecosystems – an emerging innovator region in Bulgaria (North-Central-BG), moderate innovator region in Ireland (Northern and Western), together with lead innovator regions in Denmark (Hovedstaden) and Germany (Berlin). SPECTRA will put in place key ingredients required to equip the emerging innovator and moderate innovator regions with a more responsive, resilient ecosystem, capable of growing and developing coordinated responses to many challenges creative industries are facing to achieve the National and European goals. This will be based on interaction with 2 successful initiatives - Media Deals Investment Network and Creative Business Network. SPECTRA will harness and multiply the power of individual ecosystem initiatives to enhance participation of financiers/investors and women innovators - resulting in enhanced, more inter-connected, diverse, gender-responsive, competitive, and sustainable ecosystems. Additionally, SPECTRA will include activities that will encourage development of joint strategies and amplify collaboration. Stakeholders will benefit extensively from the advanced business support models developed to fast-track start-ups, produce scale-ups, avail of best practice, new systems, structures and tools, as well as data-driven & carbon-reducing challenge-based innovation methods, case studies, role models, cross-sectoral and intra-territorial learning - engaging over 1000 stakeholders over 30 workshops, experiments/challenges, huddles and roundtables, supporting over 100 start-ups and SMEs and creating an excess of 300 new linkages. SPECTRA measures will be integrated within the context of policy, economic, societal framework and implemented on a transversal and transdisciplinary basis, encouraging the maximum output in terms of potential for additional new linkages, interconnections, joint initiatives and replication.

IN4SFS project aims to increase the cross-border investment in Turkish, Greek and Romanian innovation ecosystems, while improving access to capital skills of startups working on green and sustainable technologies and established in those ecosystems. Through the network of investors that project partners have, IN4SFS project will provide the cross-border investment opportunities to startups working on green and sustainable technologies and located in Turkey, Greece and Romania. Access to finance helps startups to use their limited financial resources on innovation at a higher level, without generating a significant income, especially while working on innovation activities. The innovative activities lead to better results in terms of sales numbers, and the overall growth rate of the startups. IN4SFS project will support competitiveness, and global potential of green and sustainable technology-focused startups in Turkish, Greek and Romanian innovation ecosystems through foreign investments and improve the investment readiness of startups. To assist foreign investors located in the Netherlands, France and Denmark to access local deal flows, IN4SFS project will use the local project partners and establish information centers in Turkey, Greece and Romania. Through the knowledge of partners in local ecosystems, these information centers will help foreign investors to access local deal flows. In terms of informing foreign investors from the Netherlands, France and Denmark on local regulatory frameworks and supporting them to establish joint cross-border ventures in Turkey, Greece and Romania, four brokerage events will be organized. These events will be focused on investors and a joint cross-border venture opportunity will be looked for.

DeuS is a 9-country project promoted by regional VET providers and cultural and creative industries representatives, variously linked to research and technological centres and public players, that even stand for 4 European Capitals of Culture, among past, presents and future designated cities. It lays its groundwork in the Open Design School pilot initiative promoted under ECoC Matera 2019, thought to be an open laboratory pivotal to the successful implementation of the ECoC programme. The project organizes a steady network to challenge the concept of urban sustainable development underpinning the Open Design School. It is in-depth discussed, tested and improved by benefiting from know-how, expertise, best practices and lessons gathered within close and comparable experiences from partners and stakeholders. It strives to enable EU regional environments and research-driven settings – both physical (Creative Open Spaces) and virtual (a multi-sided Creative Knowledge Platform) – that allow VET systems, professionals, researchers, policy-makers and local people to engage in iterative processes of innovation and problem solving to generate solutions to local challenges (RIS3) and deliver them to SMEs and other entrepreneurs, public bodies and everyone who need them. This approach enables educational opportunities in design and innovation, critical thinking and entrepreneurship to find creative and cost-effective ways to connect within and across regional territories. Cooperation and education provide opportunities to access skills, competences and research infrastructures. Players are all involved in feedback-loops allowing creative innovators to be more responsive and attractive. They can iterate, learn, and share with others, feeding innovation. Furthermore, joiners are allowed to assess social needs at local level and iteratively evaluate and improve their solutions by a trail-and-error approach that encourage sharing of lessons learned and best practices.

EPIC-WE introduces cultural game jams, culture- and value-sensitive game-making and games through and for culture as a novel approach to empower young people as co-creators of European culture and shapers of their own futures in society, cultural institutions (CHIs) and creative industries (CIs). The backbone of the project is the EPIC-WE helix ecosystem - a transferable framework where youth, CHIs, CIs and higher education institutions (HEIs) cooperate as actors in the ecosystem. Together EPIC-WE engage in cultural games jams to create games through and for culture inspired by cultural heritage. The framework explores the potentials of this approach as a method for strengthening European values, belonging and cultural participation. Through game-making activities, EPIC-WE will equip youth with cultural-creative imagination and competencies to face societal challenges with curiosity, creativity, agency and imagination – what we call Empowered Participation. The project is carried out as an ambitious Design-Based Research and Innovation (DBR) action across three European sites, where EPIC-WE ecosystem actors co-create, and through this, develop, implement and evaluate the proposed framework. The validated DBR innovations are presented as accessible resources that enable organisations across Europe to replicate the EPIC-WE ecosystem, formats, and methods. Through extensive research, capacity building and policy advocacy activities, EPIC-WE will ensure that the project’s results reach a wide range of European CHI, CI and HEI actors, including the game industry, civil society organizations and youth. The consortium is in itself a helix ecosystem, bringing together leading research, cultural and creative sector organisations with multidisciplinary excellence in DBR, participatory and value-sensitive design, game design and youth engagement to empower youth as future culture-makers and game-makers in CHIs, CCIs and HEIs and as value-sensitive agents of change in society.