Cultural and Creative Industries as Catalysts for Regional Development

Centria University of Applied Sciences positions itself as a regional development actor that mostly impacts the region through digital and technological solutions. Centria organizes an annual foresight seminar (Ennakointiseminaari), and this year the seminar focused on regional attractiveness. One of the key conclusions was that culture and the building of a sense of belonging are just as important as the availability of jobs and educational opportunities.

Creativity is a renewable and unlimited resource generated through human knowledge, imagination, skills, and interaction. Globally, interest in creative industries has grown as a source of innovation and economic dynamism due to its renewable nature (Throsby 2010). Consequently, Cultural and Creative industries (CCIs) such as music, film, or gaming benefit from the constant flow of new ideas and use of digital technologies leading to the emergence of new business models. However, being renewable doesn’t guarantee sustainable growth and inclusive development. Bourdieu’s (1986) notion of ‘cultural capital’ emphasized the need for continuous investments in cultural and educational environments to generate value beyond economic gains.

This article examines the social impact of cultural projects in the region with a particular focus on its role as a driver for social inclusion and sustainable development. The REAVES (2026) project supports this perspective through its sustainability framework, knowledge transfer, and collaboration across the creative sector. REAVES (2026) is funded by Interreg BSR, and it is a platform project that brings together best practices and outcomes from existing creative sector projects. This study is based on qualitative interviews with project managers of several cultural-creative industry projects, mainly gaming and music at Centria University of Applied Sciences. Universities like Centria help in building ‘soft infrastructure’ in terms of knowledge, innovation and culture as well as provide hard infrastructures like pelipaja (game lab) to reshape the regional identity of their hometowns. Various cultural projects at Centria emphasize that transformation is not theoretical, but it is actively shaped through research, innovation, and close cooperation with regional actors. By incorporating new ideas, digital tools, and community participation, Centria is demonstrating how CCIs can contribute to social inclusion, sustainability, and visibility in smaller regions.

A striking feature of these projects is to ‘co-design’ which means participants are not just targets but active contributors in archiving music, organizing workshops, webinars or developing games. For instance, Pelipaja (Centria game lab) is a game industry study module at Centria that ensures participants have basic skills to find employment in the game industry. Ville Autio, who is the research group lead emphasizes, “ we try to support local game developers, help them to evaluate game ideas, develop prototypes, build their teams, and if they are looking for funding, we try to help them with the pitches and finding investors or publishers and in Interreg projects, we have made cross border collaboration with our partners in Sweden”. He further adds that, “Hadn´t there been any game lab like ours, half a dozen people wouldn’t have got a job in the game industry. Most of the games wouldn’t have been made at all, no communities around game development”. Ville believes there is a huge untapped market and potential in this region because game development is quite expensive in bigger cities with higher hiring costs. But in rural regions with low cost of living, beautiful nature, local history; cultural games can not only be a great way to preserve cultural heritage but also be made more accessible to everybody.

Similar initiatives of community involvement were taken while archiving music and other intangible cultural heritage (traditions and oral knowledge). The ICH projects emphasize the community-based approach. To co-create, bottom-up approach was followed by ICH-North project by integrating local community and the voices of indigenous people of the region such as Sámi and their Joik (Chanting song of Sámi people passed down from generation to generation) to preserve indigenous musical heritage.

In recent years, immigration has been one of the most debatable topics. Many believe it is one of the mechanisms leading to the generation of social capital and driving creative industries (Yeasmin 2020). The strategy lies in how that can be harnessed. ICH North’s pilot program ‘Musical Living Room´ in Pietarsaari, was a step taken in the direction to ensure inclusivity and foster a sense of community. The Musical Living Room was low threshold participatory spaces where people could come together and play from different cultures, even if they didn’t have their own musical instrument, and jam together. This aligns with community-based transmission of musical heritage and promotes social inclusion. Hence, such initiatives can break down existing socio-cultural barriers and make people connect at the community level.

“Creative projects enhance wellbeing, equity and participation, build intergenerational bridges and strengthen local identity leading to social sustainability,” explains Katja Jankens, RDI coordinator at Centria Pietarsaari.

Creative projects can add visibility to cultural heritage and enhance attractiveness of the region globally. For example, the upcoming Spelbron project in autumn 2026 will focus in Pietarsaari region to bridge intergenerational game by creating new meeting spaces between young and elderly people, passing on traditional knowledge to next generation, preserving the intangible cultural heritage, strengthening community ties and thereby developing rural areas. The initiative aims to create new hobbies, keeping intact the histories through story telling as a living heritage. This can also help in reducing loneliness and building trust between generations by giving them new acquaintances, building new networks, enhancing innovation capacity, and increasing creativity. The costs to society also decrease when people’s mental health improves. A happy person is also a productive person. Local stories and knowledge can be transformed into games through art styles in cultural folklore, oral traditions, environmental history, and preserve regional identity. This results in cultural sustainability by usage of local history, storytelling, and passing on tacit knowledge as an inspiration for game development. Historic game Kalajoki Times 1886 can be a good example which was one of the outcomes of Centria´s game lab. It is a game about Kalajoki´s history of fishing and hunting. Hence, such projects help boost rural attractiveness by helping the younger generation see future possibilities in their own region, improving the livability, and increasing region’s retention capacity.

The question is no longer do we have creative talent, but do we have the creativity to thrive and translate into value while building region´s retention capacity?

There is a need for larger understanding and recognition of the importance of Cultural and Creative industries in inclusive regional development. The Central Ostrobothnia Regional strategy and Regional Programme report also highlights the importance of this region from a cultural perspective (Keski-Pohjanmaan Liitto). Cultural projects can boost competitiveness and innovation of SME industries and support entrepreneurship, thereby contributing to regional development and cultural sustainability. The biggest challenge for such projects to be successful is ‘grassroot networking’, as highlighted by several project leaders. It’s easier for native Finnish to network than immigrants or other indigenous communities. However, efforts are taken to address this challenge through leveraging digital platforms such as Bothnia game developers’ Discord group or organizing events such as Urbanlan and boosting participation in events like Kaustinen Folk music festival enhancing the cultural identity of a region.

For industries, success depends on visibility, curation, and sustainability while for regions success depends on ecosystems, networks and identity (Kalfas, Kalogiannidis, Ambas and Chatzitheodoridis 2024; Dellisanti 2023). Human creativity can be leveraged as a driver of sustainable growth and social development through socio-spatial strategies by bringing together multiple actors and stakeholders and deepening the cultural identity of the region. There is a symbiotic relationship between cities and creative industries by promoting information flows, networks of interaction, and relational ties (Flew 2010). By employing a curated network of actors, relations, practices urban space itself produces itself as a new aesthetic regime-an ideological apparatus (Abram & Bajic 2024). Local economies are microcosms of larger national systems where strong cultural infrastructure and active artistic life can create sustainable cities and attract inward investment to a region (Throsby 2010). Municipality, being an important stakeholder in these projects, can step in and provide infrastructural support (both hard and soft) such as old buildings for game developer collectives where a dedicated space can be made available at a minimal rent or cultural project models can be integrated into the school’s curriculum to function as models for hobbies and for development of formal game development courses. As highlighted by Outi Airola, Central Ostrobothnia’s multi-faceted cultural activist, investing in Cultural and creative industries represents a strategic pathway to sustainable regional development. By recognizing culture as both an economic and social resource, institutions as well as policymakers can foster resilient, inclusive, and vibrant communities.