Empowering Culture through Business: Introducing Business Academies for Culture and Creative Young Professionals in rural and remote areas

<< Background >>In Europe, the cultural and creative sectors are characterised by self-employment, small and micro-enterprises whose value creation is mainly based on intangible assets, such as original ideas, know-how and creativity, and cultural and linguistic diversity. At the same time, the mobility of artists and artistic and creative professionals, the circulation and translation of European content, training and talent development, fair pay and working conditions, access to finance and cross-border cooperation are issues of specific interest for research and exchange at the European level. Therefore, the initial purpose of this project was for CCYPs to gain valuable and critical assistance to meet these challenges, particularly those living in rural areas, in acquiring and developing key competencies to foster their employability and socio-educational skills. << Objectives >>The project’s main objective was to improve the employability skills and work opportunities for Culture and Creative Young Professionals (CCYPs) living in rural areas by reducing the gap between the educational world and the labour market. With this improvement, CCYPs can increase access to national and EU funding programmes, enabling them to start their enterprise or share their artistic know-how in projects to foster arts and culture in education. << Implementation >>The consortium developed the Business Academies by designing training programmes for CCYPs. The project first identified skills needs for CCYPs who live in rural areas through surveys, desk research, and discussion in focus groups, emphasising the digital, leadership and management skills required. Partners integrated the results through the National reports into the design of an innovative training programme, which includes open e-learning and work-based learning methods through the e-learning platform that was created. The fundamental activity of the project was the development of a Guidebook containing guidelines on how to set up a cultural creative business Hub. The Hubs aims to provide CCYPs with all the necessary information concerning EU and national funding opportunities and inform them about any possible partnering opportunities. Particularly in Cyprus, the project aligns forces with the HUB IN project to collaborate for the Hub sustainability. Lastly, essential activities were implemented during the project to physically establish the Hub in rural areas within the Nicosia district.<< Results >>The project carried out a series of tasks through which the needs of culture-creative young professionals were captured in terms of new skills and capabilities. This was done through a dual process. On the one hand, data was recorded on issues of employability of young professionals as well as government support schemes; on the other, data was collected by the partners through special focus groups with young people and questionnaires to young people. Through them, the team has identified the problems young professionals face in developing sustainable cultural and creative enterprises in mountainous areas.