Bridging the Gap: new mentoring methods for young creative entrepreneurs in Europe

Bridging the Gap aimed to bridge the gap that exists in VET provision for the enterprise skills that creative young people need to enter and thrive in the labour market of Europe’s fast-growing creative economy. The project filled this gap by strengthening the occupational profile and the professional development of Creative Enterprise Mentors and sought to make an impact in providing innovative solutions to the social, geographical and economic barriers faced by disadvantaged young people at a time of high youth unemployment, through fostering creative enterprise skills.As a cross-sectoral strategic partnership, Bridging the Gap targeted the priorities of Vocational Educational Training for the professional development of VET teachers, trainers and mentors with a focus on developing effective digital, innovative and open education and pedagogies. It also additionally addressed Youth priorities of promoting entrepreneurship education among young people. Finally it addressed the horizontal priority of Social Inclusion.The project proposed that creative enterprise skills offer a valid and innovative solution for many young people facing acute challenges in entering the labour market following the consequences of the 2008 economic crash. It focused on the professional development of the newly emerging role of the Creative Enterprise Mentor. The role brought together a wide spectrum of creative specialists who advise, train and support young people across the CCIs as well as business advisers operating in enterprise and business start-up support who are not sector specialists. It also targeted careers and employability advisers/counsellors and youth workers.The project develop the following results: • an Occupational Profile and Competence Standards for the role of Creative Enterprise Mentor;• learning outcomes and a modular curriculum aligned to the European Qualification Framework (EQF) to support the professional development of Creative Enterprise Mentors;• a Network Roadmap of tools for transnational communication to support the growth of a community of practice of CE Mentors;• a User Experience Compendium documenting the experiential learning that will make the context and practice of the project accessible to a wide audience;• an Open Educational Resource (OER) making all learning materials and resources available online.• a Guidance Handbook and Trainers Pack for the CE Mentor.The project was delivered by a partnership of 6 VET providers specialising in supporting creative enterprise who are strongly connected to local, regional, national and European creative clusters and networks by which to disseminate the results and recruit Creative Industry Mentors. The partners were the social enterprise Rinova in London, UK; the regional creative enterprise hub, Materahub in Matera (European Capital of Culture 2019), Italy; the Regional Development Agency (RDA) Senec-Pezinok for the Bratislava region of Slovakia; Dimitra National VET training centre in Larissa, Greece; ProMalaga at the POLO Digital Content Creation Hub in Malaga, Spain; Music School and VET training centre, Arteria in Zabrze, Poland.The project also included 16 Associated Partners comprising regional, national and European creative industry and enterprise networks.The project participants included:• 6 Senior Creative Enterprise Trainer/Mentors attended transnational meetings and 3 days of staff training;• A further 51 professionals who advise and support young people in the CCIs participated in Peer Review and Development (PRD) Groups across all 6 partner countries facilitated by the Senior Creative Enterprise Trainers;• 45 Creative Enterprise Mentors participated in online blended mobilities to facilitate co-production of learning materials and exchange of innovation. 14 completed the full 5 days;• Over 280 young creatives and creative start-ups participated in peer mentoring and PRD Groups;• 139 people/stakeholders participated in a total of 6 multiplier events to disseminate the project outcomes and bring together a network of interested parties in each country. Multiplier events included a conference at Matera, Italy to coincide with Matera 2019 European Capital of Culture, and a final conference in London;• The official website obtained 52,214 page views from 11,450 visitors, our Facebook official channel reached 16.443 people and the official Twitter account reached 41,669 people.The results of the project support the Bruges Communique objectives by bringing VET provision closer to industry needs and through entrepreneurship training creating more accessible entry routes to the creative and cultural labour markets.