Culture and creativity in the JRC
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission’s ‘in-house scientific and technical research laboratory’ and provides scientific and technical support to EU policy making. The JRC will receive part of its funding under Horizon 2020, particularly concerning non-nuclear direct actions and will focus on helping overcome the grand societal challenges, as defined by Europe 2020 and the next research and innovation framework programme.
Following amendments by the European Parliament, two of the societal challenges will focus on society and culture, namely ‘inclusive societies’ and ‘secure societies’. According to the Commission, the ‘Inclusive societies’ objective will now involve research regarding media, history, culture, philosophy and linguistics, whilst the ‘secure societies’ objective will centre on security, defence and political science research.
Speaking at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) Conference entitled ‘Scientific support for growth and jobs: cultural and creative industries’ in Brussels, Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, outlined to delegates on the importance of placing a greater emphasis on the cultural and creative sectors and their ability to help create growth and jobs, a core aim of Horizon 2020. She drew attention to the importance of the cultural and creative sectors at a time when public funding was being reduced. The sector comprises nearly one million SMEs and the Commissioner called for ‘tools’ to demonstrate the important contribution the industries make.
“We need evaluation and measurement methods which can capture the full range of impacts that culture and the arts have on the economy and on society. We need to map spill-over effects on other sectors and we need to start quantifying them.
“Those of you present today are convinced about the economic potential of the cultural and creative sectors for contributing to a job-rich recovery in Europe. However, in order to make a persuasive case to those who may not be convinced, and it is often they who decide on budgets, we need to present evidence that is systematic, comprehensive and compelling.”
Policy making
The Commissioner said that it was important for EU member states to develop a long-term strategy to promote the two sectors. The sectors have remained resilient during the economic crisis and Vassiliou added two key elements were important when considering evidence-based policy making for the industries, namely ‘quality statistics’ and ‘illustrative examples’.
“With their unique combination of scientific research knowledge and EU policy experience, our colleagues at the JRC can help to improve how we measure the impact of culture and develop adapted indicators. Science has a key role to play in providing better metrics and stronger evidence and supporting effective policy making at all levels: local, regional, national and European.”
“Quality statistics can capture the economic and societal weight of the cultural and creative sectors (for instance: contribution to the GDP, employment), the specificities of these sectors (for example the size and profile of the businesses involved) and the horizontal aspects linked with culture and the activities it generates: cultural participation, values, spill-over effects.
“I believe that statistics must be complemented by illustrative examples. A sound analysis of concrete examples of the positive impacts of cultural and creative sectors on local economies and societies should be an integral part of evidence building methodologies. Such an analysis can help, for instance, to identify systemic elements which determine success or failure.”
European Capitals of Culture
The European Agenda for Culture adopted in 2007 calls for evidence-based policy whilst statistics are being collected by Eurostat. The Commissioner outlined the important purpose the ‘Capitals of Culture’ were playing.
“The award of the title for the European Capital of Culture sets in motion a long-term process that can change a city, its image, its cultural sector and its citizens. The economic and social benefits that are generated, in terms of tourism, branding, growth and social inclusion, are felt for many years after the event. Yet we need to systematically collect and study these benefits.
“In addition, I would like to single out some spill-over effects that are worth stressing: the development of skills and the creation of job opportunities, innovation and branding, creative content and new technologies, regional development, and social inclusion.”
HE & SME
The Commissioner continued by defining the important creative partnership between higher education and business, particularly in identifying the needs of the sector and developing the skills to address labour market shortages. This, Vassiliou said, was ‘key’ to promoting youth employment in the creative sector.
“The impact of design in adding value to products and services in traditional manufacturing industries is an obvious example when talking about culture and innovation. European design is one of Europe’s great competitive advantages. Firms that invest in creative input are far more likely to introduce product innovation and so maintain their competitive edge. In the area of ICTs, artistic achievements and ‘creative content’ feed broadband networks, computers and consumer electronic devices. We need reliable evidence to capture this reality and to support the place of the cultural and creative sectors in the digital value chain.”
Concluding, the Commissioner outlined the important role of the JRC can play in the field of cultural and creative sectors can, with the organisation serving as a ‘knowledge broker’ between research and policy.
“We could try together to mobilise networks of regions, cities and cultural operators to make a critical mass of raw information available for testing models on real data. In addition, this work should also be co-ordinated with relevant work on enterprise and industrial policy, the digital agenda and regional and urban development.
“We need to engage in dialogue and further our work jointly in the two topics proposed today and, hopefully, even more, in the future.”
