The conference took place on the 1st October 2012, the event was intended to promote our efforts to mainstream culture in variety of policy areas and to highlight relevance of culture in relation to innovation, education, social, economic and environmental policy on local and national level.
Pier Luigi Sacco, Professor of Cultural Economics at IULM University, Milan, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Markets, and Heritage, set the tone for a debate as a keynote speaker of the conference. His research focused on the economy of culture in postindustrial times, Professor presented also his most recent research on influence of culture on the index of wellbeing.
The conference involved also KEA European Affairs, Brussels based consultancy, which focuses on research, analysis and strategy development for CCIs and its much debated studies include “The Economy of Culture in Europe” (2006), “Towards a Culture Based Creativity Index” (2009), “The Impact of Culture on Creativity” (2009), “Measuring economic impact of CCIs policies - How to justify investment in cultural and creative assets” (2012). Philippe Kern presented the most recent study for the European Parliament “Use of Structural Funds for Cultural Projects” (2012), which focuses on structural funds for culture investment highlighting the breadth of positive impacts linked to cultural investment in relation to a territory’s attractivity, innovation in businesses, entrepreneurship, cultural participation, sustainability for the benefit of artists and society.
The afternoon session included a number of inspiring case studies from Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Sweden related to culture and economic innovation as well as culture and social innovation.
The visiting guests of the event – the Ministers of Culture of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Denmark, reflected upon the relationship between national cultural policies and future cultural policy of the European Union, focusing on main challenges.