Sharing on a Global Scale

Creating change by exchanging knowledge and experiences is at the core of the RCIA project philosophy and a few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to do exactly that as we were invited to speak at the CLEVER Policy Seminar during Creative Business Cup 2017 in Copenhagen.

Our Spanish project partner, Berta Perez from Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, presented the RCIA project. She gave the audience a brief historical introduction to the birth of the project – that follows the policy recommendations of the European Creative Industries Alliance initiative - and went on to present more in depth the project’s objectives and activities. Her focus was on the motto “We change through exchange!” and more specifically on how exactly we are creating/implementing this change.

The Policy Seminar was organised by the CLEVER project (Creative Leadership & Entrepreneurship - Visionary Education Roadmap) funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Programme. It aims to promote the Creative Industries (CI) in Israel in terms of education, economy and policy, with the goal to build creative communities that contribute to shaping the 21st century economic prosperity, well-being and civil society in positive ways.

The purpose of the policy seminar was to gather direct evidence and experience from European counterparts with a special focus on countries with similar population size, diversity and economy as Israel. It gathered regulators and policy makers at national and EU level to openly discuss past successes and failures in further developing the creative industry polices in Europe. A delegation from the higher educational institutions and ministries in Israel joined the seminar.

The seminar started with a short welcoming statement by Rasmus Wiinstedt Tscherning, CEO at Creative Business Cup. He was followed by Christian Bason, CEO at Danish Design Centre, who gave an interesting talk on how the Danish Design Society works with innovation and smart policy learning in Denmark. Tami Warshavski, Head of the Innovation Center ACT at Shenkar College, gave an introduction to the CLEVER project and explained what they hoped to achieve with the project and likewise the policy seminar. Jens Nymand Christensen, Deputy Director-General for Education and Culture in the European Commission closed the first session by giving an inspirational speech on the European Commission’s work with the cultural and creative economy; he also specified the importance of educating the young generation to become creative leaders and possess the skills needed in the 21st century.


Section two focused on presenting good practices developed and implemented in different European countries. The organisers of the seminar had chosen three cases to be presented. Among these, - besides the RCIA presentation - was also an introduction made by the coordinator of RCIA, Christina Koch, on the financial scheme related to the Austrian creative voucher. This policy instrument was developed and tested within a European project (VINCI) and was also presented during the kick-off meeting of RCIA in Vienna as one of Austria’s good practice examples. The third contribution came from Pascal Keiser, General Coordinator French Tech Culture who spoke about the STARTS project. During the presentations both the audience and the CLEVER delegation had several questions to the speakers.

A presentation on ‘A Sustainable Creative Economy’ by cultural policy and creative industries expert Ragnar Siil followed.


The third and final section took the participants from what and why to how. How do we move forward and create a sustainable plan for creative industries? A panel of policymakers, policy experts and representatives from the educational sector discussed these issues:

  • Yuli Tamir- President of Shenkar College - Engineering. Design. Art.
  • Pascal Keiser- General Coordinator French Tech Culture and member of VERTIGO STARTS
  • Robert Nilsson, Deputy Director, Ministry of Culture Sweden
  • Ragnar Siil, Founder & CEO Creativity Lab, Estonia

The CLEVER Policy Seminar was considered by the Israeli public delegation as an eye opener in regard to the CIs and the economy at large in Europe. As such, it constituted a first significant step in raising the awareness and "urge for action" among governmental representatives and a solid ground for the coming processes.

Several needs were already identified, such as improving the visibility and awareness to existing support instruments available to the CIs in Israel, defining the sector (for the first time in Israel) in collaboration with the national Bureau of Statistics, make adaptations in existing governmental programs in related areas (employment etc.) so that they address also the CI sector.

The Shenkar College is invited to present the Creative Industries and their potential at the Ministry of Economy's conference on the 2018 work plan.