Culture InnoPreneurship - Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Digitalisation and Facilitation Competences for Culture Professionals

We applied for the CIP project to address the need for enhancing facilitation competences among culture and adult education professionals. Our goal was to empower these professionals to foster creativity and innovation within their local communities. The project aimed to transform them into ambassadors for innovation and creativity by equipping them with essential entrepreneurial, digital, and facilitation skills. Through CIP, we sought to develop "Cultural Innopreneurs" – individuals who merge cultural innovation with entrepreneurship. These innopreneurs leverage arts, culture, and creative ideas to drive social and cultural change, creating sustainable and impactful ventures that benefit their communities. The project responded to the critical need for cultural professionals to diversify their skills and roles, thus enabling them to contribute more effectively to societal and educational sectors, particularly in the wake of challenges posed by the pandemic.

The CIP had four main objectives: 1. To empower creativity and innovation for citizens & entrepreneurs: Specifically trained arts and culture and adult education professionals would induce innovation and social cohesion in their communities and provide trainings/courses for the private sectors. They would become agents for innovation in community work, the socio-cultural sector, and education, and also contribute to innovation in business 2. To develop entrepreneurial competences: CIP aimed to equip arts and culture and adult education professionals with the entrepreneurial skills, competences, and tools to develop products, services, and projects which support the value proposition of these services 3. To develop digital competences: Entrepreneurs, arts and culture, and adult education professionals would develop digital competences to create new attractive (blended) learning and collaboration offers and use innovative interactive development spaces provided by CIP 4. To develop facilitating and conveyance competences: Entrepreneurs, arts and culture, and adult education professionals needed facilitating and conveyance competences to promote, express, and transfer their expertise in counselling, training, support, and guidance

The CIP partnership implemented activities across the four project results: 1.CIP - Competence Oriented Learning and Validation Approach: - Conducted desk research, internal discussions, and feedback sessions with relevant individuals/stakeholders regarding the competences needed for the development of a cultural innopreneur. - Discussed extensively during the first Transnational Project Meeting (TPM) and online meetings on integrating three distinct target groups: arts & culture professionals, educators/trainers in adult education, and entrepreneurs/private sector, each having varying needs for competence development and application of cultural innopreneurship. - Created the Competence Oriented Learning and Validation Approach, containing relevant competence frameworks and development pathways for the CIP project. 2.CIP - Continuing Professional Development (CPD): - Developed and piloted the CPD Concept based on the R1 findings. - Implemented CPD for arts and culture, adult education professionals, and stakeholders in the private and public sectors on “Contextualised Creative Facilitation.” - Offered a qualification programme for becoming a "Cultural Innopreneur" in a blended learning modality. - Recruited 14 professionals for a four-day face-to-face training, which was transferred into individual CIP learning pilot projects and concluded with competence validation. - Developed and piloted 18 local CIP projects as part of the follow-up to the CPD training. 3.CIP - Learning Suite: - Designed and developed a learning space that includes an open-access learning kit and a Learning Management System (LMS) on “Cultural Innopreneurship.” - Created and collected video resources for the online learning kit. - Developed content for eight modules in the open-access learning kit and three modules with a digital validation pathway on the CIP Moodle LMS. - Collected feedback from relevant stakeholders, such as local pilot participants, associated organisations, and internal staff members, for iterative improvements. 4.CIP - Market Place: - Designed and Developed the blended exhibition concept and virtual exhibition space: exhibition. - Piloted exhibition in the CIP Conference - Developed a virtual space based on interlinked digital services. - Collected good examples of cultural innovation and education. - Showcased real-life examples in an exhibition format, including narrative stories, technical descriptions, videocasts, and video interviews with founders, professionals, and beneficiaries. - Developed and listed KA1 offers on the topic of Cultural Innovation and Education. - Integrated new project matching and funding platforms. - Established a help desk and provided asynchronous (FAQ, email, and chat) and synchronous counselling and exchange sessions. The CIP project was widely disseminated through in-person and online channels to European networks, the European Commission’s working group meetings, cultural and arts festivals, local meetings within partner networks and NGOs. Internal and external evaluations ensured the effectiveness of the project.

There are four key outcomes in CIP: R1: CIP - Competence Oriented Learning and Validation Approach - The CIP COLV Approach is a design based collaborative learning methodology that helps entrepreneur, arts and cultural and adult education professionals to develop new learning and training offers related to creativity and innovation, to apply digital formats and to plan and deliver high quality counselling, training and mentoring offers. This also actions fields, learning fields and a LEVEL5 based validation approach which facilitates competence validation for formative and summative purposes. - The CIP Competence Framework with 24 competences covering the development areas of entrepreneurship, digitalisation and facilitation and general competence. R2: CIP - Continuing Professional Development - CIP CPD Concept outlines the structure of CIP course which aims to enhance creativity, entrepreneurial mindset, and storytelling skills for entrepreneurs, artists, and adult education professionals. It includes necessary planning templates and addresses unique challenges for each target group, ensuring effective and contextualized creative facilitation - A three phases CPD course: pre-course with synchronous online sessions, a 4-day face-to-face course, and a follow-up pilot phase with 18 CIP local projects - A Pilot Implementation Reports that describes the 18 CIP local projects, development process and trainers’ experiences and reflections. R3: CIP - Learning Suite - CIP Learning Kit is an open access digital learning space with eight modules. The modules cover the essential competence of becoming a Cultural Innopreneur. Each modules contains a description and goal of the module, video inputs, application section, an CIP example, potential activities and a H5P quiz. - CIP Moodle is hosed on a learning management system and contains three in depth learning modules and access to the LEVEL5 validation on the CIP Competence “Contextualising Creative Facilitation”. R4: CIP - Market Place - Developed a virtual space based on interlinked digital services. - Collected good examples of cultural innovation and education. - Showcased real-life examples in an exhibition format, including narrative stories, technical descriptions, videocasts, and video interviews with founders, professionals, and beneficiaries. - Developed and listed KA1 offers on the topic of Cultural Innovation and Education. - Integrated new project matching and funding platforms. - Established a help desk and provided asynchronous (FAQ, email, and chat) and synchronous counselling and exchange sessions. The CIP project was widely disseminated through in-person and online channels to European networks, the European Commission’s working group meetings, local meetings within partner networks, NGOs, and local communities. Internal and external evaluations ensured the effectiveness of the project.