The Barcelona Chamber of Commerce held its Local Stakeholder Meeting in the impressive 19th century Consulate meeting room at Casa Llotja de Mar. The participants ideated under a ceiling with Pere Pau i Montaña’s murals from 1802, and the red damask upholstered walls gave the participants more inspiration. Here is a short summary on the event as shared by a participant.
After a short look back at the previous semester, including an interesting stakeholder testimony, we kicked off a dynamic discussion.
Starting with a short introduction on the project’s progress and activities since the last six months, we went on. to introduce the next steps of the project, the Policy Round Table (PRT) and our Action Plan. We were lucky to have a representative from the ICEC with us, who had just participated in the Austrian PRT and was happy to share his positive experiences of the format and value of the event. His comments served as an icebreaker and reminded the participants of the potential and possibilities offered by the RCIA project and strengthened everyone’s resolved to work towards improving regional cultural and creative industries’ (CCIs) policy. The discussion then took into ideas on how to refine financial support instruments for CCIs, access European funds and provide the necessary support structure and improving relations between the creative sectors (especially artists and entrepreneurs) and corporations. Solutions that were put forth included developing a new consultancy format for the CCIs with help from expert project partners, rethinking internationalisation and improving promotional efforts.
Beneath his portrait on the canopy, Antoni de Capmany i de Montpalau (1742-1812) listened quietly to this flood of ideas. Apparently, he had nothing to add to the discussion. Not surprising for an 18th century historian and economist. CCIs spill-overs and alike were just not part of the discourse yet back then!
Jokes aside, we finished the meeting with a truckload of inspiration. Now, hands on! The next semester calls for a concretisation of ideas for our action plan and charting the course for its implementation.
A big thank you again to all the participants of our meeting (The Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies (ICEC) and ACCIÓ from the Government of Catalonia; the Tourism Department at the Barcelona Provincial Council; the Culture Institute of Barcelona (ICUB) from the Barcelona City Council and the Barcelona Design Center) for their engagement and inputs.
