Creative & Cultural Industries in Europe
20^th March 2006 - Tate Modern, London

Presented in association with Tate Modern

This conference brought together experts from across Europe to present their analysis and practical experiences, for both information and debate.  In the light of a report from DG research of the European Commission on the future of the creative and cultural industries in Europe, delegates heard about specific projects and initiatives that seek to promote the creative and cultural industries and address the challenges faced across Europe.

This conference was aimed at both policy makers and practitioners, at local, regional or national level, and highlighted examples of successful (and less successful) ideas, strategies and actions that endeavoured to develop and sustain the creative and cultural industries in cities, regions and neighbourhoods.

Speakers:
Vivienne Bennett, Project Director Tate Modern², Tate Gallery, London, UK
Vivienne Bennett MBE is currently Project Director of Tate Modern², an innovative project to develop and extend Tate Modern. Other significant projects include the creation of the award winning Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, the Liebskind Spiral at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the transformation of the Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston, Lancashire.

David Garcia, Researcher & Academic, The Netherlands
David is currently working with the Virtual Platform, the organisation tasked by the Dutch ministry of economic affairs with nurturing the creative industries in the Netherlands, as well as co-coordinating a visual artist's space for the Dutch national daily De Volkskrant, in which leading artists, designers, illustrators and (most recently) advertising agencies comment on news and current affairs.

Edgar Garcia, Director of Business Development, Catalan Institute for the Cultural Industries, Spain
Edgar has developed a number of initiatives at the Institute to support Catalan cultural enterprises - projects which try to reflect the particular situation in Catalonia within the context of a wider international market.

Dieter Haselbach, Senior Partner, ICG Consulting Group, Germany
Dieter's work covers projects throughout the cultural field, including strategic management consultancy, change processes, feasibility studies, cultural planning and cultural tourism.

Norbert Kettner, Director, Departure (creative industries support agency), Austria
Norbert initiated Austria's first comprehensive business support programme for the creative industries in Austria.

Ari Kivimaki, KULTURO, Turku Science Park, Finland
Kulturo utilises the knowledge and skills in the area to develop the cultural industry of South-West Finland by providing services to people who plan to start up a new business as well as to recently founded companies. Kulturo also encourages the business environment for cultural production and digital content production in South-West Finland.

András Török, Director, Summa Artium, Hungary
Formerly Strategic Advisor to the Project Leader for the Budapest 2010 "Capital of Culture" candidacy.

Rasius Makselis, Head of Division, Development of Information Society of the Ministry of Culture, Lithuania
Rasius's responsibilities include the implementation of state policies in the fields of publishing, libraries, museums and media, digitization of cultural heritage, promotion of reading.  Rasius also contributed to the preparation of "Strategy for Promotion and Development of Creative Industries".

Tobias Nielsén, Director, QNB Volante, Sweden
Tobias has consulted on strategic development and cultural economics on behalf of governmental agencies, municipalities and businesses throughout Scandinavia, on topics including the music industry, design, film production, symphony orchestras, cultural and industry policies, and mappings of the creative industries.

Dominic Power, Associate Professor, Uppsala University, Sweden
Dominic is an economic geographer who has undertaken extensive research into the industrial competitiveness and regional effects of the creative and cultural industries in the Nordic countries.

Dessislava Stoitcheva, Arts Projects Manager, British Council Bulgaria & Creative Industries Strand Manager, UK-SouthEastEurope Forum (UK-SEE Forum) and Ian Stewart, Director, British Council Bulgaria.
Dessislava and Ian have been working on the Creative Cities projects in nine South East European cities, which aim to raise awareness amongst creative practitioners, policy makers and the wider public, about the nature and potential of creative industries to generate economic growth for their cities.

Tom Fleming, Director, TF Creative Consultancy, UK (Chair)

Simon Evans, Director, Creative Clusters, UK (Chair)

Geoffrey Brown, Director, EUCLID, (Chair)

Attendance:
A total of 140 delegates attended this event.

Delegate Comments:
 ‘Valuable networking opportunity.'

 ‘It was a very informative and stimulating day - it would make a lot of sense to plan some way of following through some of the key debates'

 ‘An exciting overview of position of cultural/creative/experience industries in Europe now.  Many questions discussed.  Very informative.'