Creative Ports – Internationalisation of the Cultural and Creative Industries in the Baltic Sea Region

Creative Ports

PROGRAMME 2014-2020

priority

1 Innovation

objective

1.3 Non-technological innovation

Creative Ports

Creative ports facilitated internationalisation, joint value creation and peer learning in cultural and creative industries.

Creative Baltic landscape

The Baltic Sea region is a model for developing an economy based on knowledge and innovation. Although the creative industries sector in the region is characterised by cultural diversity, it has not yet exhausted its export opportunities and transnational cooperation potential. In view of the high economic importance of the sector, public authorities, business development organisations and incubators have the task of supporting and facilitating the internationalisation of companies. However, they often lack sufficient international contacts and experience in cooperation processes. On the other hand, cultural institutes, transnational networks and NGOs are familiar with working on the international stage, but know less about the specific regional strengths, weaknesses and needs of the creative industries.

Bringing together complementary groups internationally

The Creative Ports project brought these different groups together and bundled their competences. 14 partners from the Baltic States - funding agencies, municipalities, international cultural institutes, universities - joined forces in a consortium led by Goethe-Institut, including the Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft, ARS BALTICA, the Danish Cultural Institute, the University of Technology Tallinn, Szczecin Media Design Association, Vilnius City or the platform for European-Russian innovation partnerships in St. Petersburg.

details

Budgets

Creative Ports
in numbers

3.08

Million

Total
2.23

Million

Erdf
0.20

Million

Eni + Russia
0.00

Million

Norway

Achievements

New creative approaches presented

As the Tallinn Business Incubators Foundation mentioned, Creative Ports has enabled the creation of new methods facilitating the internationalisation of the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI). For example, “Baltic Home” and “Game Mixer Days” can be mentioned:

Baltic Home was a virtual pop-up exhibition of furniture and other interior objects in Szczecin, Poland. Baltic Home presented designers from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany and Poland. Learn more here https://www.creativeportscatalogue.eu/chapters/tool_1/

Game Mixer Days was an acceleration program for a new generation of game developers and studios. The program had two parts: a virtual international showcase including market information and a peer-learning format, https://www.creativeportscatalogue.eu/chapters/tool_10/

Planning for the future

But the results of Creative Ports do not stop at the end of the project. The board of the Goethe-Institut in Munich decided to allocate sufficient resources to the Goethe-Institut in Tallinn to facilitate the tandems and further activities: Stabilizing the Network, Communication, Maintenance of the Online-Platform as well as Monitoring CCI funding opportunities in the Baltic Sea region and development of further CCI projects.

Summing up, the Creative Ports project improved the exchange and internationalisation processes between public authorities, CCI support organisations and cultural intermediaries and networks. The partners jointly developed and tested formats for networking and training as well as methods of supra-regional cooperation. A publicly accessible learning platform documented the results and provided learning modules to share lessons learned. Companies and other players in the cultural and creative industries got access to opportunities for internationalisation and joint value creation.

Outputs

CCI Secretariat (Contact Desk)

The CCI Secretariat/ Contact Desk serves as a focal point for internationalisation of cultural and creative industries (CCI) in the Baltic Sea region. It connects the intermediary organisations and helps them to acquire information about foreign markets, finding partners in other countries of the region and building partnerships around new project initiatives. The organisations can find contacts to enable peer-learning and build their internationalisation capabilities. The Contact Desk is approachable at https://www.creativeports.eu/contact-1

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Catalogue of the piloted internationalisation tools

The catalogue includes information on all the tools piloted by the project. It includes two introductory chapters with the overall aims of internationalisation tools, the development process, as well as internationalisation advice in a pandemic. The major part provides for each of the ten tools a short description, the aim and target group, communication activities, the program/event schedule, the tool in figures (e.g. number of participants, countries), testimonials from participants, and lessons learnt – often also for how to adapting it to a digital format, https://www.creativeportscatalogue.eu/

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Project Stories