A new project: “Creative Insight as a Service”

Every day the world is more complex. Companies and public organizations in all various sectors are facing unseen volatility and challenges. Now, maybe more than ever before, we need to face complex issues with creative means. But how can we do this in a practical manner? 

The “Creative Insight as a Service” project supports the development of creative cross-innovations in the Baltic Sea Region. In this project we develop a new method that is piloted in two companies in two partner countries (Sweden, Poland and/or Latvia) in spring 2023.

The aim of the project is to develop one tested creative method for further use. The method would facilitate the production of new creative insights to address the real needs of the organizations.

The project is driven by sustainable development and related to SDG 17 “Partnerships for the Goals”. New cross-disciplinary partnerships play a vital role in the shift for sustainability.

The method

The “Creative insight as a Service” method taps into the creative capacity of the professionals of the art, culture and creative fields possibilities to produce creative insights to specific topics on demand.

Firstly, the organization ordering the service defines one topical theme, challenge, question or phenomenon to which it is in need of new creative insights and perspectives. Thereafter the organization is provided with a tailored shortlist of creative professionals/artists, that have the capacity to elaborate the topic through ones creative practise. The organization choses then one creative for their collaboration.

In the next phase the creative professional is introduced with the topic and starts a phase of inquiry to gather more information. This material serves as a basis and inspiration in the following independent working process. Finally, the produced creative insight is shared in a facilitated session together with the creative and the organization for further elaboration and dialogue.

The intermediary serves a key role facilitating the service process between the organization and the creative professional, managing the expectations, and integrating this process to benefit the organization, and the creative professional in the best way. Based on the pilots and their evaluation, the method is developed further and shared as a tool with a wider round of innovation communities and stakeholders.

Project partners and funding

Project is implemented by the Subtopia (lead partner), Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture NDPC and Fabryka Sztuki.

The project is financed by the Swedish Institute with co-founding from the NDPC. The partnering companies are invited as co-funders to enable the pilot in their own organization.

More about creative cross-innovations

Creative cross-innovation is a collaborative process where professionals from the arts, culture and creative fields (CCIs) share information, working methods, creative approaches and “cross-over” to other sectors and traditional industries to collaborate with professionals from other fields. The aim of creative collaborations is to tap into the potential of creative know-how, to promote new thinking, access creative activities, and boost creative co-creation. Innovations for sustainability can serve as a thematic umbrella providing a shared value base and goal setting for new forms of cross-disciplinary creative collaborations. The study “Collaboration and Innovation in the Northern Dimension Countries” (NDPC 2021) mapped cross-innovations and their potentials. The study states clearly that creative cross-overs have a lot of potential for societal impact, but the underlying potentials are not yet being realized.