Workshop on Education, Skills and Professional Training

22 September, Brussels, Belgium

On 22 September 2011, the European Platform on the Potential of the Cultural and Creative Industries will organise a one-day workshop on Education, Skills and Professional Training.

Composed by nearly 40 European organisations, the Platform represents hundreds of thousands of cultural and creative actors from all fields.  This workshop forms part of a larger series of workshops with the objective of deepening the recommendations of the Platform produced in September 2009.

The workshop starts from the assumption that in a constantly changing profession, it is essential for artists and creative professionals to keep their knowledge and skills up-to-date.  The recent European Commission Green Paper on Unlocking the Potential of the Cultural and Creative Industries as well as many CCI ´s state that it remains difficult to find staff with the right match of skills. Even though the arts educational institutes would define their mission as broader than merely supplying skills for the labour market, all members of the Platform share the need to better understand and map new skills that artists and others creative professionals need and how to incorporate these in educational programmes. Partnerships and incubator units between art and design schools, universities, businesses and organisations in the other domains can contribute to this aim.  

The workshop offers the opportunity for reflection and informal discussion between experts, artists, platform participants (+ their national members) and European Commission officials and aims to:

-          Underpin and deepen the paragraph on education in the Platform Recommendations (2009);

-          Stimulate dialogue and collaboration between the members of the CCI Platform;

-          Integrate the view of creators  in the debate and outcomes;

-          Learn from examples of inspiring practice from partnerships in a wide range of disciplines and from different countries.

We would also like to take the opportunity to exchange information on new policy initiatives such as the ‘Sectoral Skills Council for the Cultural and Creative Industries’ (European Commission Directorate General Employment and Social Affairs), the launch of the ‘European Creative Industries Alliance’ (European Commission Directorate General Enterprise and Industry) and updates from the Directorate General on Culture.

The programme relies on the active participation of the Platform members, their own members and key practitioners from local and national partnerships.

The workshop is being prepared with no operational budget thanks to the commitment from our organisations and the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels that will kindly host the workshop.   

Each organizing organization has the possibility to invite only a restricted number of members (max 15) from each organization. The “first arrived first served rule” will be then applied to confirm your registration.

The workshop will take place from 10.00 to 16.30 hours at the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts,  144 rue du Midi in the centre of Brussels

Organisers/Scientific Committee 

Eleonoor Tchernoff: European Association of Conservatoires – AEC

Frank Stahmer/Helmut Erdmann: European Composers Forum – ECF

Truus Ophuysen: European League of Institutes of the Arts – ELIA

Simone Dudt: European Music Council – EMC

Giannalia Cogliandro Beyens -ENCATC

Heidi Wiley: European Theatre Convention – ETC