Policy Brief: CCI and Traditional industries’ cooperation

NDPC is launching the second policy brief "Hearing and Dancing? How can the Cultural and Creative Industries Engage with 'Traditional Industries' to Mutual Benefit?" within the framework of an EU-funded study project ‘Cross-sectoral cooperation and innovation within Creative and Cultural Industries – practices, opportunities and policies within the area of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture’, which is being carried out throughout this year. The ability of CCIs to connect with other sectors and contribute to cross-sectoral innovation is the major focus of the project of which this Policy Brief is one component.

The project was conceived and its terms of reference defined before the COVID-19 pandemic when cross-sectoral working and innovation was seen as something desirable. In this new world it is going to be essential in order to find new ways of working and new sources of income and funding. With United Nations’ designation of 2021 as the year of “The Creative Economy for Sustainable Development”, CCIs will be expected to take a proactive role in finding solutions to global and local challenges. Creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs will need to significantly increase their efforts in terms of cross-sectoral working. The CCI sector can contribute effectively to solving many of the challenges and issues of other sectors if some of the barriers such as cross-sectoral communication gaps and other constraints can be tackled. The fact is that there has probably never been a more auspicious time for new policy development and for re-visiting strategy.

The aim of this Policy Brief is to begin to explore the potential of the Cultural and Creative Industries to work with ‘traditional industries’. Being such a wide and complex subject, to narrow the focus it looks at the the CCI sector in relation to the traditional cultural sector. It looks at how the Cultural and Creative Industries can engage further with the traditional cultural sector and the education sector to mutual benefit and to start to define what actions or support measures are needed to facilitate this.

The Policy Brief covers three main areas:

• How traditional is traditional culture or any kind of traditional industry in a fast-changing world. What are the survival scenarios for CCIs and the traditional cultural sector in the post- COVID-19 world?
• How can CCIs, the traditional cultural sector and the education sector educate each other and how can the common interest be identified? How effective is the CCI sector at communication and advocacy?
• How can the benefits of cross-sectoral cooperation and innovation between CCIs and the traditional cultural sector be stimulated, recognized and evaluated or measured?

This Policy Brief represents the inputs and ideas of many experts and specialists whom we want to thank, especially those who actively contributed to an Experts Focus Group which took place as an online event on 10th September 2020.

The policy brief is available in English and Russian.

The NDPC welcomes your feedback on this Policy Brief. For more information on the project mentioned above go to the project page.