Background
A new generation of entrepreneurs and creative individuals is emerging in our cities. Gathered in a diverse set of urban “tribes” (wikipedians, digital artists, local media producers, fablabbers, arduins, new designers…) they are creating new jobs and opportunities in difficult times: They do this not only by developing and improving products and services on their own but also enriching and revitalising existing economic activities. The digital transition of societies, which is rapidly taking place at a global level, provides these communities with opportunities that can boost this movement even more.
These informal innovative communities are also increasingly being discovered by scientific and cultural institutions such as universities, cultural centres, and also by corporations and local governments that wish to understand and engage with these new forms for innovation.
However, in many cases these urban creative communities are isolated from their counterparts in other cities, and do not have access to Future Internet technologies and solutions (both in terms of high-speed wired and wireless infrastructure and in applications) which could be highly instrumental in both the creation and the exchange of innovative content and applications. As a consequence, the immense potential of the European Creative Industries, in size as well as in diversity, is currently not fulfilled.
The Creative Ring
The Creative Ring facilitates these engagements, by enabling a European-wide, technology-supported experimental ecosystem for creative talents, professionals and stakeholders working in and with the Creative Industries.
The Creative Ring is specifically directed at supporting creative entrepreneurs, innovators and other stakeholders in the Creative Industries in embracing the opportunities of the digital transition that characterises European societies of today.
The Creative Ring is organised as a network of networks, unfolding at the intersection of the local and European level. By igniting relations between local creative actors, open creative ecosystems are encouraged to emerge, which then again are assembled within a European network of creative ecosystems.
The Creative Ring has the ambition to
- Boost the competitiveness and the digital transformation of the Creative Industries in Europe;
- Leverage urban innovation as a transformation engine towards a more inclusive and smarter society;
- Generate a mentality shift encouraging (social) entrepreneurship and transmit the start-up mentality into society;
- Establish a constant dialogue with politically, economically and socially relevant institutions across Europe.
Value for those who engage in the Creative Ring
While the ecosystems that are connected in the Creative Ring vary locally in their priorities and organisational form, common for them all is that they through virtual and physical meetings seek to create new business and innovations models and practices, new knowledge, novel organisational forms, as well as services, solutions and products that are able to scale and accelerate through the link to the European umbrella: The Creative Ring.
The Creative Ring will
- Allow members to quickly identify partners for research and innovation projects, co-create digital tools, business solutions, and exploit other collaborative opportunities;
- Provide members with great opportunities for visibility;
- Extend the market for creative industries’ services and solutions and make markets accessible also for micro-companies;
- Allow for co-creating high-quality projects, products, services and solutions that are targeted users/ the public by greater and quicker access to expertise;
- Allow for a better uptake of solutions and services through a closer proximity to users, customers and the public in general;
- Allow for a great variety of business and innovations models for creative organisations from where best practices can arise;
- Avoid duplication;
- Create a strong collaborative voice of actors in the Creative Industries towards policy makers.
