Angela McRobbie, Professor of Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London introduces a new project exploring capacity building for future creative industries entrepreneurs.
CREATe’s Fashion Work Package, based at Goldsmiths, where the team comprises Angela McRobbie (PI), Dr Dan Strutt, Dr Bettina Springer and Carolina Bandinelli, has recently been involved in a successful bid for additional funding. This new project is titled ERASMUS Plus: Key Action 2, Smart Entrepreneurial Skills for Creative Industries: An Inclusive Perspective: Smart Jump.
It involves the following partners: Confindustria Veneto SIAV (think-tank), Fondazione CUOA (university partner) Winnet Sweden (third sector) Goldsmiths University of London, INDICO Spain (third sector) ITL Group Hungary (third sector) and the Region of Veneto. The overall budget for the project which runs for 30 months is approx. 400,000 Euro.
In a region suffering from high levels of graduate unemployment, especially for young women, the project addresses the question of how to develop better infrastructures for training young people in a socially inclusive way, for working in an entrepreneurial capacity in the creative and cultural industries. Where in the UK this kind of training is increasingly concentrated in one year Masters courses eg MA Cultural and Creative Entrepreneurship, MA Cultural Policy, or MA Brand Development etc, this kind of specialist course, sometimes with an internship option, is less common across other EU countries. In addition this new project seeks to develop these skills inside existing creative small businesses as well as for those who are currently jobless. The Smart Jump project will consider various templates for implementation including the WINNET model from Sweden, which focuses exclusively on gender and entrepreneurship. The role of Goldsmiths will be more widely to provide input at the level of specialist modules but to be modified for the Italy context. There is to be strong emphasis on travel and exchanges for those taking part as ‘trainees’ and this will include a week long programme at Goldsmiths in 2017. More specifically the partners are keen to find out about the CREATE Fashion WP research for the light it shines on small business models in the fashion sector in London, Berlin and Milan. Indeed this research is to be highlighted at the kick-off meeting in Mestre, Veneto 10th and 11th December 2015. We attach here a Powerpoint presentation which summarises our interim results.