SMART Accelerators guideline for the CE AREA
The sector of creative industries and culture plays a very important role not only in building a competitive economy but also in initiating social changes in the region. The creative sector is an area of the economy with hard-to-define borders. For the purposes of further analysis, therefore, it seems to be necessary to, at least, briefly describe the designation of this concept.
In the literature on the mentioned subject, there are two basic methods of distinguishing organizations belonging to the creative sector. The first method is to accept the criterion that the manufactured product is protected by copyright. In the second method, the criterion is the nature of production processes taking place in the organization, assuming that they must be creative, consisting in creating, providing specific experiences or producing a specific element of symbolic culture. In this approach, a specific group of economic activity is most often distinguished, often assuming in an arbitrary manner that these are the areas of creativity. The categorization rules presented above allowed for the identification of several terms for the creative industries sector.
SACHE is a unique learning opportunity. Providing for what one may understand as a rudimentary form of action research, SACHE allows studying in situ the development of cross-sectoral partnerships at the junction of cultural heritage and the creative industries across Europe. It is in this vein that the methodology has been developed, providing immediate, practical guidance to the SACHE partners while at the same time allowing for new insight and knowledge to be developed that will be of use beyond the remits of the project itself.
The methodology presented here takes the form of what is referred to as the SACHE-Crosssectoral Partnership Navigator. The navigator is to be understood as a prototype for a general process description that serves the purpose of guiding and supporting the establishment of collaborative enterprises between cultural operators and creative industries both within and beyond SACHE. The process described extends from the initial phase of scoping the field to the maturation phase of pitching new ventures and thus capturing a large section of the value creation process.
The present document is to be read in conjunction with the SACHE-Navigator. The navigator, as spelled out in the methodology, is a “tool that allows its user (economic development agents, cultural operators and others both within SACHE and beyond) to clarify his/her position along the process of establishing cross-sectoral partnerships at the junction of cultural heritage, the creative industries and other sectors (e. g. new technologies) and direct a suitable course of action to the end of stimulating entrepreneurial activity.”
The SACHE Project Typology, the subject of this paper, is designed to help the user of the navigator to characterise and classify his/her project along a spectrum of preeminent project types that have emerged from SACHE (thus far) and which will allow for a more case-specific deployment of the navigator.