Transnational opportunities within the cultural and creative sector

Kurt Cortis MEUSAC executive PN candidate

This translates into more than 10,000 jobs in Malta and roughly six billion at EU level. Given the ever increasing growth rate as well as the fact that this sector is predominantly made up of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU recognises the need to invest further in this industry to help preserve the cultural heritage whilst increasing the circulation of creative works inside and outside the EU.

Creative Europe is an EU funding programme aimed at increasing distribution, cooperation and development in the audiovisual and cultural sectors. It is divided into two sub-programmes, namely media and culture. The media sub-programme strives to increase support to a sector which is continuously being transformed with the rise of digital technology. Creative Europe aims to support projects that are able to generate concrete improvements, including supporting individual work, initiatives that promote new skills and international cooperation in the sector.

The culture sub-programme aims to protect the European cultural heritage from human and environmental threats. It promotes the cultural and creative industries by facilitating various activities designed to tap into a market which, for years, has been undervalued and hardly recognised. Specifically, this involves the contribution of direct financial and technical support in order to facilitate cultural and creative organisations and individuals to operate internationally and promote cross-border circulation of works of culture.

One of the opportunities provided by Creative Europe is the call for European Cooperation projects targeting active cultural and creative organisations with the aim of improving access to European culture and creative works and to promote innovation and creativity. Through this call, organisations operating in the cultural and creative sector are able to promote, expand and enhance their work, by developing new skills and competences through collaboration with other cultural and creative organisations on an international level.

The Creative Europe programme identifies five priorities under which European Cooperation projects may be funded: Transnational Mobility, Audience Development, Digitisation, New Business Models and Training and Education. Potential projects may address a minimum of one and a maximum of three priorities.

A potential project may include the exchange of artists and professionals as well as creative works. The aim is that of directly engaging people and communities in experiencing, enjoying and valuing arts and culture. Training and Education can be included to offer the participants the opportunity to acquire new skills and improve their employability, addressing issues such as the digital shift within the industry by encouraging the use of digital technologies from production to distribution or by simply enhancing business skills in order to better understand the everchanging economic context.

Cooperation projects are split into two categories to facilitate the different scale, objectives and priorities of the project. Category I caters for small scale projects that must involve a minimum of two partners. An application under this category may request an EU grant of no more than €200,000. A maximum of 60% of the project budget is covered.

Category II caters for large scale projects and may receive up to €2 million in EU funds, representing a maximum 50% of the eligible project budget. Large scale projects entail a minimum requirement of five partners. The maximum duration for both small and large scale projects is four years.

Calls for Cooperation projects are published bi-annually, targeting all cultural and creative operators which have been established and actively promoting cultural or creative works for at least two years.

For more information about this funding programme and other funding opportunities, contact MEUSAC on 2200 3300 or funding.meusac@gov.mt.