Ekip

Innovations

About

European Cultural and Creative Industries Policy Platform

HORIZON-CL2-2022-HERITAGE-02
HORIZON-CSA

Operating with open innovation principles, Ekip will establish a partner and network-driven policy recommendation engine to continuously drive the formulation and adoption of policy development recommendations for Europe’s Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs). This will result in support and guidance that strengthens CCI-actors’ capacity to engage in and contribute to complex innovation processes. The interplay between the projects’ activities will allow us to deliver two objectives – building the meta-network amongst ecosystems and developing the knowledge-based and participatory policy engine. By combining these objectives, we will achieve the third objective, which is supporting the development of CCI-centered ecosystems.

For two decades now, principles for organizing and managing complex innovation processes have centered on openness, collaboration, and multi-stakeholder interactions. Such an open innovation approach allows handling inputs from several actors and directing them towards value-creating innovation. Open innovation and ecosystem thinking is even more pertinent in the era of green and digital transformations and other global challenges such as the energy crisis that are heavily impacting the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) and need fast policy adaptation.

However, open innovation principles are still rarely applied as normal practice. Existing support structures and innovation ecosystems are not designed for this and there are few guiding policies to support creative and society-centred innovation and multi-stakeholder innovation practices. More effective policies are needed so that supportive ecosystems for complex innovation will operate according to open innovation principles.

Ecosystem-centric, cross-organisational innovation must become normal not only for CCI ecosystems but for the innovation ecosystems at large (the European Industrial Strategy, March 2020, and May 2021, has identified 14 industrial ecosystems). Third-party support (i.e., innovation intermediaries) is needed for this to happen.

Given these challenges, Ekip – European Cultural and Creative Industries Policy Platform will support the development of policies that make the use of open innovation processes into the new standard. This will ensure that supportive ecosystems develop a capacity to handle complex multi-stakeholder innovation processes needed to realise more innovative CCIs in Europe and the behavioural change they drive towards a more green, inclusive (fulfilling the 17 SDGs) and digital Europe.

The policy engine

The policy engine will be designed in three main phases:

Assess needs for future R&I actions – List of defined policy areas together with a meta-network of networks covering all member states and the CCI diversity.
Mapping of needs CCIs; tech, invest, skill, regulation – Investigate prioritised policy areas looking broadly and across sectors, also focusing on recommendations that will (i) increase the CCIs’ readiness for green and digital transitions as well as for the rest of the economy and society.
Identify and propose key actions – Formulate policy recommendations, also giving practical guidelines of how to implement and track development in ecosystems.

Objectives

Build a strong meta-network of networks across Europe’s CCI and beyond
We will build a strong meta-network of networks within Europe’s CCI and beyond. This meta-network will operate according to open innovation principles and focus on interoperable capacity, making collaboration, learning, and scaling more likely and achieved quicker. A self-sustainable, long-term business model for the network will be developed. The broad-based, representative, and inclusive meta-network will also feed into high-quality data collection, and well-informed policy formulation and validation.

Establish a CCI community-centred European policy recommendation ‘engine’
Using the principles of open innovation, we aim to establish a community-centred policy ‘engine’ that ensures a continuous innovative formation and adaptation of policy recommendations for the support of CCI-companies’ strengthened capacity for participation in open innovation processes. Such processes of complex innovation will be guided by policy towards a more green, inclusive, and digital Europe.

Boost CCI-driven innovation ecosystems contributing to a resilient, green, and digital transformation
The policy engine will guide and support CCI-centred ecosystems to develop a greater receptive capacity (for knowledge and technology in particular) that, along the lines of open innovation principles, will both make companies more innovative and speed up their innovation processes.

Partners

Ekip brings together highly networked and diverse organisations with strong track-record in research, innovation, and policymaking for and with the CCIs. Beneficiaries from 12 countries with different social, cultural, and economic contexts.