COMMON LAB MANUAL: KEY THEORETICAL CONCEPTS​
​CULTURAL & CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

​Text: Sotirios Bahtstezis

The "cultural and creative industries" or "branches of culture and creativity" have become one of the most widespread topics of the last fifteen years, both in the academic field and in the field of policy making. The research of Nicholas Garnham (1990, 2000) in the UK on the cultural industries, the research of Charles Landry (1995) on the creative city, and later the introduction of the term "creative class" by Richard Florida (2005) were perhaps the main theoretical pillars of the new narrative of the “economy of creativity”. The importance of creativity grows in people's work lives. A class of people unified by their engagement in creative work emerges. Millions of us were beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always had, Florida observed. This Creative Class was determining how the workplace was organised, what companies would prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities would thrive. The creative class is 1/3 of working people in American and European cities. This is guided by Technology – Tolerance – Talent (Florida 2005).

The industrialisation of culture is intertwined with the technological development that provided the means and the reproduction of cultural goods on a massive scale. The internet, for its part, has made many symbolic goods more accessible to the general public through file sharing, while the development of digital technology has transformed production methods and costs by creating an immediate need to use cultural products and services. As some first world countries struggle to compete in traditional markets such as manufacturing, many countries see the creative industry as a key component in a new “knowledge economy” capable of delivering urban regeneration, often through initiatives linked to the exploitation of cultural heritage leading to increased opportunities for tourism development.

In terms of policy-making, the above theoretical positions have been combined with the government’s efforts in the UK since 1997 to promote and invest in the creative and cultural industries, as levers of local and regional development and as tools with which city ​​neighbourhoods can be turned into centres of culture and creativity. Thus, for the first time, purely cultural policies are designed into local and regional development policies, forming the early ground on which, a few years later, concepts of creative city, creative clusters and cultural districts  will be fertilised (Avdikos 2014). Indeed, UK government figures reveal that the UK creative industries represent more than one million jobs and bring billions to the UK economy (DCMS Creative Industries Mapping Document 2001).

In 2010, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) focused on studies to identify the challenges and opportunities posed by the development of creative industries in developing industries. As Cunningham et al. (2007) maintain, the exploitation of creativity brings with it the possibility of creating new wealth, the cultivation of local talents and the creation of creative capital, the development of new export markets, significant multiplier effects throughout the wider economy, the utilisation of information communication technologies and enhanced competitiveness in an increasingly global economy. A key driver of interest for the creative industries and development is the dual recognition that on the one hand the value of creative production lies in ideas and individual creativity and on the other hand developing countries have rich cultural traditions and pools of creative talent that lay the foundations for creative business.
The planning of the European Union’s cultural policy for the period 2014 to 2020 begins in 2010, when the European Commission announced the “Green Paper” on the release of the potential of the cultural and creative sectors, which for the first time officially reason for the “cultural and creative industries” in the EU-27 (Avdikos 2014). The main objectives of the new programming are the development of skills through the training of artists, the coverage of the increased needs for funding, the connection of local and regional development strategies with the CCPs, through their contribution to innovation, the mobility of creators and the distribution of creative and political works and cultural exchanges.
Accordingly, on a national level, the subject of culture and creative industries is the central axis of the National Strategy for Research and Innovation for Smart Specialisation 2014-2022 (RIS3). Recent studies concerning the creative economy in Greece, demonstrate the added value of the creative industries, the increased needs for specialised executives and their contribution to the development of the comparative advantage of the regions and the country. The above study demonstrates the strategies of locating creative and cultural industries for their intra-sectoral and inter-sectoral connections, but also the ways in which creative and cultural industries create various other (added) values ​​for industries such as the real-estate market, the construction industry and tourism (Avdikos 2014).

Calculating the value of the creative and cultural industries is a complex task that depends on many factors, including the study of available statistics (Avdikos 2014). According to the study for the mapping of the cultural and creative industries in Greece, of the Institute of Regional Development of the Panteion University in 2017, the cultural and creative sector in Greece occupied in 2014, 110,688 employees in 46,370 companies, which sold symbolic goods and services of € 5.3 billion, with an added value for the Greek economy of approximately € 2.1 billion, contributing 1.4% of the GDP. Respectively, in the EU-28, creative and cultural industries contribute to European GDP by 2.8% (€ 353 billion), through 1.7 million companies with 6.1 million employees in 2014. Based on similar studies, it is clear that creative and cultural industries are one of the fastest growing industries in Greece, employing a significant number of workers, mostly young (20 to 40 years old), 40% are higher education graduates, 40% are women and about 13% work from home through contract agreements (project-based work) (Avdikos 2014). Of course, the distribution of cultural and creative production, employment and number of companies in the 13 administrative divisions of Greece proves to be particularly uneven, as the Attica Region produces 75.5% of Gross Value Added (GVA) of the  creative and cultural industries  in Greece, with 57.3% of creative enterprises, which employ 60.8% of the total employees. Thus, in the Attica Region, most of the cultural and creative industries seem to be over-concentrated. The center-periphery model, which is evident in most sectors of economic activity in Greece, seems to be reproduced in the cultural and creative industries with even greater intensity, to the benefit of the two largest urban centres (Athens and Thessaloniki) and to the detriment of the rest of the region. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
About Common Lab
​Background
Timeline

ACTIVITIES RATIONALE 
​Tale of X Cities & media competences for community building
State of the Arts & the digital public spheres

KEY THEORETICAL CONCEPTS
​Social innovation through art
​Art for social change
​Post-industrial design
Cultural and creative industries
Bibliography

CASE STUDY: TALE OF X CITIES
​About the case study
​Tale of X Cities key results & findings
​Lessons learned & recommendations 
Model project flow
​Media productions as evaluation tool
​Digital events and communication formats