Innovation Festival Finale in Milan brings the question “What IF we discussed the future of creative industries?” into focus. In combined efforts IF Finale on February 27 and 28 presents the unique IF experiences of six cities across Europe: Barcelona, Milan, Kortrijk, Lisbon, Vilnius and Tallinn. On two days keynote speeches, roundtables, panels and discussions with high ranking and influential politicians, representatives and experts will lead to create a practical vision of an European Creative Industries Alliance (ECIA).

We asked the experts beforehand. Thus having a small series of interviews in profoundly introducing IF´s urgent agenda. The Austrian manager and expert Lucia Seel kindly provides the opening interview. She is Project Manager with CREA.RE creative regions INTERREG IVC on behalf of the Regional Government Authority Upper Austria Department of Cultural Affairs and Expert member of the European Forum for Clusters in Emerging Industries.

The interview is available under http://www.2010lab.tv/en/blog/innovation-festival-milano

The European Creative Industries Alliance is ready for the official launch! It will be kick-started during the Innovation Festival (IF) Finale under the PRO INNO Europe® Initiative,  26-28 February 2012 in Milan, Italy. The start of the Alliance is eagerly awaited by the European creative industries community since it was first proclaimed at the beginning of 2010 when the Amsterdam Declaration was adopted. The initiative was also announced in the European Commission’s Green Paper on “Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries”, and it forms part of both the "Innovation Union"  and "An Integrated Industrial Policy for the Globalised Era" flagships.

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A great opportunity is showing up for European clusters in the field of creative industries to build further cooperation activities in the framework of the European Creative Industries Alliance. Cluster organisations working in this sector are strongly recommended to consider taking part in the just out Call for Proposals published by Enterprise and Industry DG of the European Commission. 

Further information can be found at: 

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/itemlongdetail.cfm?item_id=4989 

More precisely, Strand 8 of this call is addressed to cluster organisations, and its objective is to develop better cluster support for creative industries by bringing together regional, national and European actors that support cluster excellence & cooperation in creative industries in one public-private partnership at EU level. This partnership shall promote the development of world-class clusters in creative industries by raising the quality of cluster management, facilitating cooperation with other related sectors and clusters, and by supporting the internationalisation of cluster activities. Each action is expected to be jointly implemented by a consortium of between three to five cluster organisations, national and/or regional authorities responsible for a cluster programme or initiative in the field of creative industries. 

The following specific tasks may be considered: 

• Promoting the quality of cluster management in creative industries;
• Facilitating linkages and cooperation with other sectors and clusters in related industries;
• Supporting the internationalisation of cluster activities in creative industries;
• Encouraging clustering and cluster incubation in creative industries.

To facilitate the setting-up of partnerships to submit proposals for this call, the European Cluster Collaboration Platform has set up a specific Community called “Creative industries cluster collaboration” that interested cluster organisations can join at: >> Creative Industries cluster collaboration in section "all communities".