The undersigned call for a collective action throughout Europe towards a comprehensive research and innovation approach focused on citizen-centered, research-driven creative industries and covering the entire research and innovation continuum, from fundamental research on the humanities, computer science and natural sciences, among other disciplines, to applied research and innovation across disciplines. This requires specific actions to strengthen the emerging regional networks of creative industries in terms of a well distributed and interconnected high-quality European network of innovative creative industries, ensuring that science-driven and social innovations benefit European citizens throughout the entire European Union.
We consider that such a European-wide deployment of research-driven creative industries has the potential to help achieving the twin digital and green transitions in the coming decades, taking into account that:
- Europe greatest assets rely on its creativity and cultural diversity, so that cultural and creative industries play a critical role on rising challenges that can only be best addressed through research and innovation. These challenges can foster European identity and cohesion, European employment, economic resilience, and smart growth, as well as strengthen Europe as a global actor in research and innovation;
- Cultural and creative industries are a diverse sector that includes areas from audiovisual, music and cinema to architecture, design, fashion and cultural heritage, encompassing millions of jobs in Europe;
- The pandemic we all confronted over the last year demonstrates the importance of knowledge and science to be able to ask more accurate and difficult questions, and to better understand the risks we face, as well as to evolve in the new geological era of the “Anthropocene”. This requires the promotion of creative thinking and new approaches to engage and empower citizens throughout every European region and leaving no one behind, in order to imagine and create new ways of inhabiting the Earth and relating to one another;
- The uniquenness of creative industries depends on the diversity of their concepts, methods, traditions and experiences, and on their productive relationship with the humanities, the social and the natural sciences, including through innovative forms of transdisciplinarity;
- New scientific knowledge on interactions to effectively support the challenges of the green and digital transitions that are seizing opportunities across all disciplinary areas, including the humanites, will benefit from opening creative industries to research communities across the entire spectrum of disciplines, strengthening the overarching importance of interpreting and reinterpreting what it means to be human in the face of a world in transformation;
- Innovation across the current institutional landscape and with diversified stakeholder groups, building the necessary economic and environmental resilience, but also addressing the social context and, above all, the inequalities that persist across our societies, will gain from a European-wide deployment of well coordinated innovative creative industries in all European regions;
- The advancement of scientific culture and the public understading of science, which will help guide our common future, together with the increasing participation of citizens on the digitalization and greening of our societies, requires empowering citizens engaged on creative activities with research communities to support sustainable development, and adequately monitor and act on climate change through the arts.
We acknowledge the enormous success of the evolution of the several European Research and Innovation Framework Programmes over the last decades, as well as the emerging Horizon Europe Program, 2021-27, launched in February 2021 under the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union, and the impact on the commitment to further foster world-class research and innovation across disciplines. We particularly welcome the recognition of the value of research and innovation for and by the creative industries under Horizon Europe´s Cluster on “Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society”, supporting the efforts of the creative industries towards the twin digital and green transitions.
We recognise the important role of the initiative New European Bauhaus – NEB launched by the President of the European Comission in October 2020, which will foster links with cultural heritage as well as with the cultural and creative industries in Europe, further promoting disruptive solutions for Europe. We believe that the NEB should effectively engage culture and creative industries, as they are relevant for the society and can play a fundamental role in shaping a better future.
We acknowledge the recent enlargement of the scope of the European Institute of Technology – EIT, as achieved in January 2021 under the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union, through a new Knowledge and Innovation Community – KIC on culture and creativity. It will foster network opportunities and will catalyse the conditions for the creation and scale up of new ventures in innovative ecosystems and will also allow further cross-fertilization with other economic and industrial sectors. In this context we also believe that the Knowledge and Innovation Community on culture and creativity should be built on existing European, national and regional initiatives and should be complementary to other Union initiatives, such as Horizon Europe, as the need to develop new products relies heavily on cultural and creative industries. This KIC should continuously foster synergies with the member states policies, with Smart Specialization Strategies (S3) and the Cohesion Policy Funds.
We recognise the important role of the European Creative Business Network, as well as of the extensive research and innovation activities underway in Europe to support the digitisation of libraries and archives, virtual tours of museums and archaeological sites, but there is need to expand and further support the application of digital tools to preserve cultural heritage and to make it widely accessible. Actions should develop digital facilities that will allow the construction of shared infrastructures, provide specialized trainings and courses and facilitate knowledge and know-how exchange to address real needs in the field of cultural heritage. Projects should thus increase the use of existing tools and cutting-edge technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality or artificial intelligence, to lessen limitations of access to and knowledge of cultural assets. A common European Cultural Heritage Collaborative Space should be at the center of these activities.
It is in this context that we acknowledge the significance of the high level round table on “Research and Innovation for Creative Industries”, taking place at the Knowledge Pavillion – Ciência Viva on June 17, 2021, conveying an important message about our scientific and innovation cooperation and common achievements for the benefit of the European Union and its people, so that they can trust science and its use for them and for building a sustainable future. In particular, we highlight the multiple sectorial perspectives discussed in the round table, combining a mission-oriented, demand-driven and problem-solving approach, which incorporates key stakeholders and covers diverse geographies, cultures and technology readiness levels.
The undersigned agree to work towards the promotion of citizen-centered, research-driven creative industries in Europe and:
- Invite scholars and entrepreneurs to mobilize their institutions and relevant stakeholders to guarantee that every single youngster throughout Europe has wider access to creative industries by 2025, contributing effectively to increase awarewness of cultural and creative industries throughout all European regions;
- Further request higher education and research institutions to reach out to a wide range of cultural and creative industries, through education, research and innovation initiatives aimed at sustainable innovation, co-designed with local communities, building from the humanities and their interaction with sciences and technology;
- Invite municipalities and regional and local policymakers to emphasize the role of local museums and new ways of participatory cultural management, to help museums and other cultural institutions become fully embedded in cities’ life, also taking into account the differences between metropolis and small towns. Digital strategies might be developed as part of local and regional management pratices, including sustainable ways of sharing knowledge and facilities to communicate through and about objects and collections of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage;
- Further encourage a close interaction with local, regional and national communities and authorities, as well as cooperation with research institutions and the cultural and creative stakeholders (e.g. artists, actors, interpretation specialists, designers) to attract and engage the public and in particular young people;
- Invite researchers to facilitate and widen access to cultural assets through digital and cutting-edge technologies and tools, further exploring the role of digital tools, such as 3D/4D simulations, and virtual and augmented reality technologies in engaging with cultural heritage and providing efficient and global solutions to the real needs of accessing, protecting and preserving cultural heritage;
- Invite museums and libraries to further offer broader access to their collections and engage in collaborative joint ventures including fundamental science and innovation to create breahthroughs across high impact areas, such as energy, climate, sustainable cities, cybersecurity, biomedical sciences, basic sciences and engineering, as well as social sciences and the humanities;
- Engage citizens to further help the promotion, exchange, and adoption of best practices to balance gender participation at all levels of operation, management, and exploitation of creative industries.
The undersigned invite the European Commission to participate in this endeavour and work with the signatories to best support it at the EU level, including:
- Promoting a dedicated call on a coordination and support action, enabling citizen-centered, research-driven creative industries in Europe to coordinate among each other and promoting a pan-European ecosystem of the actors in the sector, specifically focused on the innovative solutions they can create. This will also contribute to the necessary awareness-raising for the new funding opportunities in Horizon Europe (2021-27), as well as defining a medium/long-term strategy for the citizen-centered, research-driven creative industries in Europe together with the stakeholder community;
- Setting up a Cultural Heritage Partnership linking initiatives at EU and national levels, foreseen for Horizon Europe (2021-27), and in a way to further promote the European Cultural Heritage Cloud to foster links across research, education, digital skills and high-performance computing in Europe.
A copy of this Manifesto was handed at the end of the event of June 17 to Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth.
The Manifesto is open to be signed by citizens and institutions, at www.cienciaviva.pt/creative-industries/manifesto/.
Sign up the Manifesto
Signatures:
Manuel Heitor, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Portugal
Christian Ehler, Member of the European Parliament
Rosalia Vargas, President, Ciência Viva
Alexandre Quintanilha, Deputado da Assembleia da República Portuguesa, Portugal
Pedro Nunes, Head of Marketing, Programming, Ciência Viva
Catarina Figueira, Head of Communication, Ciência Viva
Ana Noronha, Executive Director, Ciência Viva
João Monney Paiva, President, Instituto Politécnico de Viseu
Pernille Weiss, MEP, European Parliament
Tiago Pereira de Sousa, Head of Product Design, Pixartidea
Marie-Louise Berg, Member of the Board, Fashion Council Germany
Ingo Rollwagen, Professor, AI Design Competence Collective
Mário André da Rocha Carvalho, Teacher, Agrupamento de Escolas de Nisa
Pedro Roque, Air Traffic Controller, NAV-EPE
Jacob Sylvester Bilabel, Director, Aktionsnetzwerk Nachhaltigkeit in Kultur und Medien
Ricardo Dias, Member of Board, BioLab Lisbon
Paula Tavares, Design School Director_IPCA, IPCA
Ana Reis Saramago Matos, Galerista, directora e curadora, Galeria das Salgadeiras
Martin Buschmann, Member of European Parliament, Parliament
Luis Miguel Lopes Teixeira, Assistant Professor, Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Eva Kaili, Member of the European Parliament, European Parliament
Detlef Schwarte, Director Conference, Reeperbahn Festival
Ibán García del Blanco, Member of the European Parliament, MEP, European Parliament
Eva Kaili, Member of the European Parliament, European Parliament
Axel Voss, MEP, European Parliament
Cláudia Timóteo, Communication Officer, Ciência Viva
Cláudio Garrudo, Head of Division, INCM
Nancy Duxbury Carreiro, Researcher, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra
Luís Lima, Professor, Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa / Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave
Ana Bustorff Martinho, Board os Directors, Ar.Co - Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual
João Sampaio, Product Designer, Pixartidea
Angelika Niebler, Member of the European Parliament, European Parliament
leonardo springer, course coordinator, ISEC Lisboa
Tânia Fernandes, Director, Universidade de Lisboa
Rodrigo Furtado, Director, Programa em Cultura e Comunicação - Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
Sergio Ribeiro, CEO, Planetiers
Prof. Inese Vaidere, Member of the European Parliament, European Parliament
François-Xavier Bellamy, Member of the European Parliament, European Parliament
Teresa Riera Madurell, Former Member of the European Parliament. Professor. Science Policy Advisor, Barcelona Supercomputing Center
Maria Badia, Former MEP, European parliament
Tomasz Frankowski, Member of the European Parliament, European Parliament
Bernd Fesel, Managing Director, European Creative Business Network - ECBN
Marika Johansson, Student, Jamk
Maria de Fátima de Sousa Basto Vieira, Vice-Rector for Culture, University of Porto
Uta Pollmer, Research Fellow, Fraunhofer IMW
Jean-Noël Tronc, President, GESAC - European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers
Maria João Bravo Lima Delgado, Professor, FAUL
Rui Amaral, Project Manager, Adentis
Cátia Silva, IR, SPA
Barbara Thaler, MEP, EP
Christian Sommer, President, Spitzenorganisation der Filmwirtschaft (SPIO)
Zhechka Kalinova, Manager, Idein Ltd., Bulgaria
Rui Ibañez Matoso, Professor Adjunto Convidado, ESAD.CR
Dora Santos Silva, Professor and Researcher, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Pedro Estoura, Senior Information Technology Business Analyst, Self-Employed
Olinda Maria Machado Viana Cirilo Machado, Professora, Agrupamento de Escolas Damião de Goes