Call for Proposals: Innovative approaches to urban and regional development through cultural tourism

DEADLINE: 12 March 2020

Call ID:TRANSFORMATIONS-04-2019-2020

Types of action: Innovation action | Programme: Horizon 2020

The aim of the call is to address the challenges linked to the compounded socioeconomic and cultural origins and effects in Europe of the fourth industrial revolution in a context of globalisation and digitisation and to provide alternative policy options. R&I activities will provide new evidence and policy options in order to mitigate or support these transformations with a view to enhancing the diversity of cultures and social bonds, the existing or nascent social and cultural strengths of Europe, as well as reinforcing the social, cultural and economic benefits of the fourth industrial revolution where relevant. They will thus contribute to fostering equitable and sustainable prosperity and culture in the broad sense through objective scientific evaluations, social, cultural and technological innovation, co-creation and bottom-up solutions. The call's activities will also contribute to the objectives and the legacy of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 and to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

With an allocated budget for 2020 of EUR 8.000.000, this topic addresses, as specific challenge, the underexplored innovation potential of cultural tourism in what cross border, regional and local cooperation is concerned, the unbalanced level of development of cultural tourism between regions and sites, as well as the knowledge gap in terms of quantitative and qualitative data on the phenomenon of cultural heritage tourism and on understanding its contribution to cultural Europeanisation and economic and social development in Europe.

The proposals under this call should include innovative strategies and pilot solutions for successful and sustainable cross border, regional and local cooperation in cultural tourism, including those for management, training and services. Various options of the use of the EU Structural Investment Funds should be explored. Minority cultures and regions as well as urban areas currently less attractive to cultural tourism should receive special attention in proposed strategies and pilot activities. Further on, proposals should include place-based and participatory approaches to investigate relations between intra-European cultural tourism and Europeanisation and their impacts on identities and sense of belonging. 

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU in the order of EUR 4 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Please find more details on the scope, expected impact of the action, other topic conditions and documents here.

The call was published on ec.europa.eu website here. © European Union, 1995-2019

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