On 1st October 2018, the first RCIA Policy Round Table took place in Vienna.
The Agenda can be found here.
The key highlights and discussion points have been summarized below.
After some welcoming words and an introduction to the RCIA project, aws gave an overview to Austrian challenges and objectives, leading to the main focus at the Policy Round Table: the Creat(iv)e Growth Programme. 
The programme was introduced considering some background factors. The Austrian creative industries report had concluded that creative industries cause great cross-over effects far beyond their own economic performances and are a driver of innovation for other sectors. It also stated that companies from the wider economy highly benefit by cooperating with creative industries.
Stemming from this discovery, Austria is now working on a new funding pilot that will actively promote the transformative and cross-innovative power of the creative industries on the wider economy.
Before the Policy Round Table only a brief concept of the programme existed. In the course of the roundtable, a completely new structure and project approach was developed through intense conversation with the experts and other participants. The proposed approach has never been seen before in Austria: Using the fact that companies coming from the traditional sector can apply for funding when facing a challenge/problem, the solution was to match them with a creative service provider, who will enable the development of comprehensive solutions, be it through process innovation, business model innovation or through methods like design thinking. For the first time, Austria will have a funding programme that supports a problem-solving process whose outcome is yet unsure.
It will be a non-repayable grant awarded by call in mid 2019 with a financing volume amount of up to EUR 200.000.- per project. In total about EUR of 3.2 Mio. of subsidies will be available for this call.
In the last hour of the Policy Round Table the participants moved to the side-focus of the day: capacity building for banks. The experts from Spain and Belgium were talking about their experiences and their success stories related to that topic, which gave the Austrian participants a better insight on how or what to put a focus on if a similar concept shall be installed in Austria as well. In the end Rasmus, the moderator, gave a great wrap-up of the results of this very long and intense day of the Austrian Policy Round Table.
Some of the participants who shared their experiences with us are quoted below :
“Participating as an expert in the Austrian Policy Round Table in Vienna on October 1st 2018 was a very gratifying experience. Not only could I freely give my opinion in a very frank and constructive way, but I was also surprised about the seriousness of the AWS/Austrian Government representatives team and the whole working session. AWS was smart and generous enough to be able to share the Creat(iv)e Growth programme with all the experts, be open-minded and humble to listen to our comments and advice. Furthermore, we devoted over 5 intense hours to make a really detailed discussion about the mentioned programme, going from the more strategical approach down to very technical and tactical issues such as de minimis, or the eligible costs, just to mention a couple of them. ”
- Edgar Garcia Casellas, Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies (Catalunya/Spain)
“I was very inspired by Austria's innovative approach of funding not CIs but NCIs to encourage them to use CI services. This method has the advantage of reaching a large number of key sectors and actively participate in the revitalization of these sectors while promoting the development of CI sectors. I’m looking forward to hear about the results of this highly interesting project.”
- Candice Rosenfeld, Start-Invest (Wallonia/Belgium)
“The Policy Round Table Program gave me the opportunity to discuss and question the content and structure of my program in a guided workshop with international experts. This exchange has led to novel approaches and the funding program has taken an exciting new direction. At first sceptical, I now highly recommend this format.“
- Karin Emprechtinger, Manager Creat(iv)e Solutions Programm, Austria Wirtschaftsservice (Austria)
Participants:
Rasmus Wiinstedt Tscherning (Creative Business Cup Foundation), Denmark
Edgar Garcia Casellas (Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals - ICEC), Spain
Candice Rosenfeld (Start-Invest), Belgium
Marlis Baurecht (Austria Wirtschaftsservice), Austria
Michael Hofegger (Austria Wirtschaftsservice), Austria
Christina Koch (Austria Wirtschaftsservice), Austria
Karin Emprechtinger (Austria Wirtschaftsservice), Austria
Kathrin Schelbaum (Austria Wirtschaftsservice), Austria
Gerin Trautenberg (Kreativwirtschaft Austria), Austria
Regina Rizzi-Pavek (Federal Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs), Austria
