First, I will define my role. Creative Europe is the European Union’s only funding co-operation programme that is devoted to Europe’s cultural, creative and audiovisual sectors. It is a pan-European programme that has a budget of €1.46 billion over a seven-year period. The current edition lasts until the end of 2020.
A feature of the programme is that it has what we call “desks” in every country. Creative Europe desks are information and promotion points for the programme, which is administered centrally from Brussels for all participating countries. At the European Commission, a policy team looks at the delivery of the programme’s strategic aims, evaluation and budget. An executive agency is responsible for administering the funding. The agency comes up with the guidelines and application forms, and the application forms are sent back to it. The agency’s work is assisted by a vast pool of industry and sector experts. That is similar to what my colleague, Orlaith McBride, said about peer assessments: the approach also applies in Creative Europe, with an international dimension written into it.
The role of the desks is to be a bridge between the sector in a country and the centre in Brussels. For lots of cultural operators, Brussels might be far away. The desks are devoted to looking after the sector in the country. In the UK, I head the team of Creative Europe Desk UK, which is a partnership between the British Film Institute—where I work—the British Council, Creative Scotland, the Welsh Government and Arts Council England. We are designated by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to deliver promotional information and awareness raising on the programme in the UK. I wanted to make the distinction that although Creative Europe is administered out of Brussels, there is an office, such as the one that I lead, in every country.
You asked about artists and when they are supported in their careers. That can be done at any time that they need to be supported. There is a lot of support for young and emerging talent, but people at different stages of their careers can be supported.
It is important to understand that Creative Europe has a set of clearly defined objectives. Any application that comes to the programme for funding has to satisfy those objectives. Artists and cultural operators might think of a great variety of exciting projects that they want to embark on, but in order to get funding, those projects have to align well with the objectives.
The objectives are smart, because there is an interesting tension between them. Creative Europe’s two main objectives almost pull in opposite directions. One objective is to safeguard and promote cultural diversity in Europe, including linguistic diversity and the promotion of cultural heritage. Equally important is the objective of competitiveness. That is a more industrial agenda and is about strengthening the sector, which is already performing rather well. In line with the UK narrative, the creative industries sector is growing faster than other sectors. The sector is worth the investment, because it is future facing and contributes to all the societal issues that we badly need solutions to. All those narratives are well aligned between the UK and the EU.
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The programme is trying to achieve on both objectives. If we look at it as a spectrum, some projects will be more industrial in their ambitions and some will be more focused on diversity. However, they will always be somewhere on that line. Any application or project that comes to Creative Europe has to bear in mind the wellbeing of the sector, rather than just the individual project. The application must consider how the project contributes to strengthening the cultural sector in its locality as well as the international dimension.