The Austrian RCIA Local Stakeholder Group started its activities
Following the personal invitations issued by Austria Wirtschaftsservice, coordinator of the RCIA project, 20 of the most relevant stakeholders for the Austrian creative industries policies gathered on 15 May 2017 in Vienna. The aim of the meeting was to learn about the RCIA objectives and explore the potential of interregional exchange and learning for policy improvement.
After a short tour-de-table where each participant introduced his/her organization, Christina Koch, the RCIA coordinator presented the project’s objectives, the activities planned to be undertaken as well as the role of the Local Stakeholder Group. This group is a think tank looking into the good practice examples shared by partners from other regions while analyzing viable ways that address their own needs for creative industries policies’ improvement. The issues of interest identified in this first meeting were then translated into three types of policy measures and instruments. First, measures that are able to facilitate the interaction and collaboration between creative SMEs and companies from “other“ industries, second those able to build awareness in the financial sector (banks) about the particularities of the CCI sector and the needs of creative SMEs, and third those related to the need to improve the entrepreneurial skills of creative service providers - with a long-term perspective of including such developments in the National Operational ERDF program.
Members of the Austrian Local Stakeholder Group will attend the upcoming RCIA project meetings and study visits and bring the learnings and experiences back to the group to be shared and discussed with their colleagues. The next Austrian Local Stakeholder Group meeting will take place in September 2017.
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