On January 24-26th 2018, local stakeholders from Wallonia attended the European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN) Campus in Brussels.
This European network is a 2-year project, co-funded through the Cross-sector strand of the Creative Europe programme with the objective of building a sustainable community of creative hubs and co-working spaces across Europe. 200 creative hubs are members of this network.
Wallonia wants to continuously and extensively study the evolution of creative hubs and get new inspiration. The ECHN event was an opportunity to do this for the eight hub managers and employees, and the three policy officers from the DGO6 (Directorate General for Economy, Employment and Research) who attended. At ECHN, the attendees who represent the core of the Local Stakeholder Group in Wallonia had the chance to share, learn and collect information related to creative hubs.
The first presentation highlighted the 2018 European Creative Hubs Barometer key findings. This raised an opportunity to look at different aspects of the European creative hubs ecosystems.
Afterwards, thanks to the different workshops, we had the chance to better understand:
1. How to boost creative hub incubations and acceleration services
2. How hubs are dealing with the Freelance Labour Market
3. How creative workspaces can help to create resilient ecosystems for creative entrepreneurs
During this event, the Wallonia participants also had the time to meet and exchange knowledge and ideas with different creative hubs among Europe. This was an appreciated chance to grow the network.
The visit to the ECHN campus gave some food for thought in terms of the many initiatives and research presented.
More information: https://www.creativehubs.eu/
