Entrepreneurial Assets and Capacities need more support

The Cultural and Creative Industries have steadily acquired relevance in recent years – more so than any other business sector – for the competitiveness of the European economy as a whole. They are already a leading sector for economic growth and job creation, yet the cultural and creative entrepreneur needs more support? While this might seems as a paradox on first sight, a closer look shows several gaps between rising expectations towards the Cultural and Creative Industries ( CCI ) and the conditions and capacities they are performing under.

 

While CCI boast €558 billion in value added to GDP (4.4% of total EU GDP) and hold 8.3 million full time equivalent jobs (3.8% of total EU workforce), digitization enables for a huge new range of possibilities whilst simultaneously bringing about challenging risks for businesses and employment. While the role of cultural and creative spillovers as cross-sectorial innovation motors is widely acknowledged as a stimulant in society and the wider economy, value added per company for the majority of CCIs is too small to invest in new building new markets.

 

To open a sustainable future for CCI, the European Creative Business Network with its more than 20 members in 14 nations call to look beyond the picture of success today to focus the risks of the future. ECBN members point out that it is dangerously overseen that the Entrepreneurial Assets and Capacities today are not ready for the change of the 3rd industrial revolution – even though it is at the same a driver of exactly this forceful change in economy.

 

The ECBN Policy Manifesto draws upon the experience of its members, the leading agencies and intermediares for cultural and creative industries on national, regional or local level in Europe to put forward a comprehensive strategy of the European Union as a whole, engulfing all federal levels of policies and aiming at transversal and holistic strategies across all sectors to drive growth and employment within the cultural and creative industries as much as its transformative spillover effects on the wider economy.


ECBN special thanks go to the editorial board:
Johanna van Antwerpen (Amsterdam Economic Board)

Bernd Fesel (ECBN)

Laure Kaltenbach (Forum d’Avignon)

You can read and download the ECBN Manifesto 2015 here.