Rationale:

Currently both in Finland and Russia the creative industry enterprises are small, isolated and lacking the necessary skills for profitable businesses. There is a further lack of mediators, managers and producers.

These challenges have been identified and reconfirmed in a number of the reports, white papers and strategic plans produced on the national and international levels. The Russian authorities stressed in Concept for the cooperation development in the culture between cross-border areas of the Russian Federation and neighboring countries until 2020” that the problems hampering the smooth development in this field are connected to a lack of skilled professionals capable for running joint cultural projects and services, and also to a limited access of population to cultural services and limited participation in the cultural life.

On the Finnish side a number of reports and research papers, including but not limited to a study “11 Dimensions. Trends and Challenges in Cultural and Creative Industry Policy Development within the Northern Dimension Area” (2015) prepared by the experts of the University of Aalto at request of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture, have been produced and made clear that the creative entrepreneurs lack business, entrepreneurial, management, production and marketing skills as well as knowledge about immaterial rights and internationalization.

The present project is initiated to contribute to capacity building of cultural stakeholders to provide high-quality, versatile, and sustainable cultural services on the basis of co-creation models, customization, cost-effective solutions and cross-sectoral approach.

The project consortia is seeking for the possible partners / stakeholders in Finland interested in developing cost-effective models for high quality, affordable education, lifelong learning support for the professionals working in CCI, and continuous professional development programmes equipping the creative professionals with the kinds of in depth skills that can be applied and built upon in the workplace.

The project is expected to create incentives for enabling the cultural actors co-create high quality, versatile, cross-sectoral and profitable cultural services. Also, the project should be seen and understood as a contribution to the regional and local capacities in supporting creative start-ups and effectively linking the latter with private companies, NGOs and other stakeholders.

The project activities are targeted to cultural stakeholders and interest groups in the target regions. The target groups include private companies, SMEs, startups, cultural organisations, educational institutes (universities, colleges) as well as young and innovative people with an entrepreneurial mindset living in the area. These target groups benefit from the project in different ways including increased networks, skills, capacities and awareness of new technology possibilities.

Target groups:

1. Creative Industries entrepreneurs, incl. start-ups, and existing companies planning/willing to extend their service concepts to cross-border and international markets.
2. Students studying the culture management, the creative industries, and other students (with an entrepreneurial mindset) willing to start career in culture sector (Design/Media/ Music/Technology/ICT and etc.)
3. Culture professionals and organization working in the regional and municipal cultural settings (museums, libraries, galleries, artist groups and the culture-leisure centres (in russian - kulturno-dosugovij centr).
4. Higher education institutions/colleges having event / cultural management and related topics in the curricula.
5. Young people, volunteers and active enthusiasts.
6. Relevant officials/municipal managers in the pilot responsible for the culture development, tourism and youth affairs.