Towards a European Creative Industries Alliance September 20, 2010
The Enterprise and Industry Directorate General of the European Commission held an information day on September 9th to illustrate the objectives, approach and structure of the nascent European Creative Industries Alliance.
As Reinhard Büscher, Head of the Unit Support for Industrial Innovation, explains: “The aim is to have a high impact and this will not be achieved by just another network or mere policy recommendations in this strategic industry. We need committed partners, master plans and concrete actions to facilitate entrepreneurship, structural change and spill-overs with this initiative.” This, in Mr. Buescher’s vision, calls for a further €100 million for innovation support to the creative industries.
Mette Quinn, DG Enterprise & Industry, outlined how the European Creative Industries Alliance will concentrate the main actors at regional, national and European levels to discuss and implement the strategic use of existing actions assisting SMEs in this field, whilst also improving transnational cooperation.
Ms Quinn delineated the strategic plan for implementing the Alliance and pointed out that it would focus on three key areas: (1) innovation support services, (2) incubation & access to finance and (3) cluster excellence & cooperation.
In his presentation, Mr Carsten Schierenbeck, DG Enterprise & Industry, addressed practical actions for better innovation support pointing out that “1 million Euro of European funding can trigger up to 20 million of additional funding for SME support such as through voucher schemes.“
The complete programme of the Information Day and links to the Powerpoint Presentations are available here.
