Regional Development agency of the Ljubljana urban region (RRA LUR) adopted the Action plan: Ljubljana urban region as the important strategic document of the region and started with the development of the activities in October 2018.
The document Action plan: Ljubljana urban region consist of different activities that are interrelated in the thematic terms and integral parts of three main actions.
The first action Capacity building of students and creative professionals aims at improving the capacity building as one of the key areas of policy support for CCI. Inspired by the good practice RaPaPro presented in the CRE:HUB project (in Latvia), RRA LUR initiated a creative partnership programme, which facilitates collaboration among educational and research institutions and business in order to bring the creative ideas into “life”. The results of the first year programme are above the expectations and were presented in more than ten national and international exhibitions.
According to the CRE:HUB State of the Art Joint Report creative micro-businesses and SMEs might not have an adequate capacity and skills to adapt to rapidly changing technological environment. Across many sectors of the CCIs in Slovenia and LUR there are skills shortages, especially in very specific areas, so the weaknesses identified have been tackled by the activity Training of creative professionals (under the Action 1).
The second action is focused on Development of support programmes for coworking spaces. Based on the finding that as the hightech sector gravitates towards technology parks, it seems that CCIs is keener on less formal coworking spaces, RRA LUR started to develop two activities that support the coworking spaces, which are performing the role of incubators for CCIs. A revitalisation of the underused historic building into the Writers Hub (physical investment and renovation) and the creative voucher scheme to support the
diversity in the coworking spaces, which was launched in January and July 2019.
The Establishment of the creative incubation programme is the focus of the third action. Creative start-ups may have a difficult time attracting similar amount of attention and subsidies as, for example, technological start-ups, which, on the other hand, are not always more successful in terms of scale-up or sustainability. The educational system in Slovenia does not provide the necessary focus on entrepreneurship and innovation. Therefore adequate comprehensive support for young creatives was developed to match the business opportunity with entrepreneurial skills, to overcome the challenge of market acceptance, to pursue a niche oppor¬tunities etc. Two good practices identified in the CRE:HUB project, were used as an example: Startup Lisboa (initiative of the Lisbon City Council) and LIAA Creative Industries Incubator (established within the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia). The incubation programme in Ljubljana urban region starts in April 2020. We expect that the programme will support more than 80 creative entrepreneurs in tree and a half year period.
Important steps have been taken for the support of creative economy in the region, based on the activities of the CRE:HUB project (exchange of best practices, preparation of policy documents, collaboration with international and local stakeholders, expert exchange etc.). The measures taken will Increase the awareness on the added-value that creative SMEs bring to the region.
