Mediterranean Innovation came to Brussels!

The past 7th May, ENoLL with the support of Creative Ring, held a networking event in Brussels aimed at triggering cross-border project collaboration and knowledge exchange between two creative communities of practice: the Med Creative Community and the Belgian Creative ecosystem. Inspired by Kristel Van Ael’s System Design methodology, participants co-created a set of preliminary project proposals as a first step towards future collaboration.

Event Background

ENoLL, as a partner in TALIA, organised a Networking Dissemination event in Brussels on the 7th May 2018 under the name: ‘Mediterranean Innovation comes to Brussels, bringing creative minds together’.

As the title might suggest, the aim of the event was to bring into practice one of the key pillars of the TALIA Capitalisation Strategy: Scaling-out the results from the MED area to the rest of Europe. For this purpose, our objective was to provide an opportunity for two creative and complementary communities of practice: the Med Creative Community and the Belgian Creative ecosystem, to network and learn from each other, create new contacts, discover new sources of creativity, and

ultimately, expand the possibilities for future transnational project collaboration.

The approach of the event was deeply rooted in the concept of inclusive growth and cross-border cooperation in moving towards a more collaborative and creative Europe. In this respect, the role of ENoLL in TALIA is of key importance in connecting the Med area with the ‘heart of Europe’ and other creative communities across the continent. We believe Innovation arenas such as Living Labs have the potential to allow creative people to be part of the actual innovation process by facilitating their participation in it.

About

The event was expected to act as a trigger for the creation of a future transnational and connected creative community in Europe. By bringing the MED and Belgian creative community together in the same room the main objective was to identify the possibilities for future transnational project collaboration. The expected results of the event were the following:

• Knowledge exchange;

• Learning of new innovation practices;

• Discovering of new sources of creativity

• New contacts;

• New joint project proposals.

The overall target audience for the event were the Med Creative Community (TALIA project partners and TALIA Modular Projects), and Creative networks in Belgium. For most participants, the event was a first-time contact. However, some of the stakeholders were familiar with each other already. This is why a networking format was essential.

On the Mediterranean side, the following projects were present:

• ODEON Project – Padova Chamber of Commerce;

• CO-CREATE Project – Politecnico Milano

• CreativeWear Project – ARCA Consortium

• +RESILIENT – Veneto Region

On the Belgian side, the following projects were present:

• Brussels Creative

• De Krook

• Hub.Brussels (Living Hub)

• Atelier ICL

• Extensa

• IMEC

• B-Sprouts Lab (FabLab)

• PLOEF!

• Cultural Advisor Meet-up

• e-Strategy sprl

Some conclusions reached…

• Trans-local cooperation with other creative communities – from an outward-looking perspective – helps monitor the competitive position of the country/region with regard to others and to identify its position within global value chains. Today not only businesses compete with each other but also territories: countries, regions and cities, in an effort to attract investors and visitors, and to extend the external markets for the products and services they offer.

• The importance of having a network. Networks allow creative businesses and communities to generate interesting opportunities via strong ties. It can create brokerage prospects by linking people and stakeholders to: create new methodologies, products and services; have access to the right expertise; combine complementary best practices and strength; collect ideas, skills and talents from different cultural contexts and thus increase the level of creativity and competitiveness at a global scale.

• Systemic Design as the key methodology to build trans-local networks. The intrinsic idea behind using the Systemic Design methodology was doing a vision creation exercise that enabled participants to move from the micro to the macro level of system-based collaboration and network creation. The adoption of the Systemic Design methodology has the potential to pave the way for establishing formal networks between creative stakeholders, businesses and local clusters.

• Strong communication, good partners and relationships, together with openness and a learning-based approach appeared to be the key best practices amongst all participant projects.

• The Quadruple Helix Model an essential capacity in all joint project proposals.