2019 kicked off on a high note for RCIA’s Walloon partner, who organized a Policy Roundtable (PRT) on 29 January.
The PRT was held in view of three main points:
- It has been a decade since the Creative Wallonia programme was implemented
- Belgium will hold its elections on 19 May
- The outcome of the PRT will help shape the upcoming Local Action Plan for Wallonia’s S3 strategy and ERDF programming.
On the agenda was the policy of creative hubs and how Creative Wallonia could position itself in a way that highlights its specificity and visibility and avoid competition with other actors.
Among those present were experts such as Alberto Ordieres from Peninsula- Canodrom/ le Canodrom, a creative research park that the RCIA partners visited during the study visit organised by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and Niels Mitschke from AWS, RCIA’s Austrian partner. These two foreign experts contributed greatly by sharing their experience and knowledge.
Further, Christina Koch (from AWS, RCIA’s Lead Partner) - Rasmus Wiinstedt Tscherning, CEO of the Creative Business Cup (moderator of the PRT) and the Belgian partners (Sowalfin) and a representative of the Cabinet of the Ministry of Economy gave valuable input and recommendations for the future of Wallonia’s creative hubs policy. These recommendations focused on 4 themes: hub governance, hub business models, indicators and the visibility of these structures in the ecosystem.
These recommendations were presented to representatives of Walloon creative hubs for initial feedback and then presented to all creative hubs on 26 February 2019.
The next step will be to send a survey to the creative hubs asking them to position themselves according to the recommendations and collect their feedback on the same.
Thanks to the recommendations and the results of the survey, the Walloon partner will be able to develop the Local Action Plan that aims to improve this policy of creative hubs, a story that is to be continued...
