Smart Indicators for Smart Regions

1. Smart Indicators for Smart Regions Universities and the need for a new knowledge base for the cultural and creative sectors Colin Mercer, Bristol, UK (Member: European Expert Network on Culture and CoE-Compendium Expert Group on Cultural Participation Issues) colin.mercer@hotmail.com

2. Some ‘killer facts’….. • Economic crisis year 2008: • Global contraction of international trade by 12% but world exports of creative goods and services continued to grow: $592bn in 2008 - double 2002 level - annual growth rate of 14% over 6 consecutive years (UNDP/UNCTAD Creative Economy Report 2010). • In the EU the growth of the sector's value added was near 20% in 99-03. This was 12% higher than the growth of the general economy. Where general employment decreased in 2002-04, CCI employment increased (KEA, The Economy of Culture in Europe, 2006).

3. Killer facts… • In many advanced EU countries spend on cultural/recreational goods and services is the 2nd or 3rd highest household expenditure category after housing and food but ahead of transport. • At city-region level cultural employment is very high: Greater London Area - 24%, Paris (Ile de France) 45%.

4. ‘Portugal we have a problem…’ • What are the comparable figures for Portugal as a nation and its constituent city regions? • In London, employment in the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) sectors is the second largest employer after Financial Services. City-region trends across the EU are following this pattern. • What is the situation in Portugal? What can and should universities and regional agencies be doing to build both the quantitative and qualitative knowledge and evidence base for the CCIs and for policies towards them? • Can Portuguese universities and regional agencies develop a ‘SPIRT’ (Strategic Partnerships with Industry for Research and Training) funding model where ‘industry’ is taken to include government funding agencies and the CCI sector as a whole – subsidised and non-subsidised –as Australia did in the 1990s? • Do they need to….?

5. Yes! – Europe and Portugal in the creative age • Richard Florida and Irene Tinagli, Europe in the Creative Age, 2004: • Portugal and Italy are lowest ranked for creative employment in the EU with less than 15% of total ‘creative class’ employment compared to 30% in the USA and figures near that in Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland and Iceland. • Portugal was the only EU country to experience negative growth in creative class occupations in 1995-2004. • Portugal is at the bottom of the EU ‘Creative Class’ index with 13.14% of total employment. • The good news (in 2004) is that Portugal was ranked third highest on the ‘Creativity Trends Index’ – because it was starting from a low base, but the trends are positive.

6. Size doesn’t matter • The familiar argument that the size of Portugal matters, either by geographical area or by population (10.6 million), does not work because: • It has a slightly larger population than Sweden (9.4 million) • It has a population more than twice that of Norway (EEA) at 4.8 million and nearly twice that of Finland (5.4 million) and Denmark (5.5 million). All of these are near the top of the European rankings. • Final killer fact: It’s population is 33 times larger than Iceland (320,000) which has the highest CCI employment in the EEA, thriving music, fashion, design, and computer games industries (all officially and statistically recognised as CCI in EU and UN terms), and was ranked in a 2010 US survey as ‘the most innovative nation on earth’.

7. Key drivers: digitalisation and globalisation • The digital revolution is as important for the CCI sector as the print revolution was for the Reformation and the Christian church in the 16th century because: • The portable book – especially The Bible, prayerbooks, almanacs, broadsheets, newspapers - in the vernacular language was as important for transforming the 16th century Christian church and society as the devices of the smartphone, the ‘pad’, the laptop, and the platforms of Facebook, Twitter, etc., for the ‘Arab Spring’ in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria – and many other non-Arab countries. • Printing and mass publishing was the first ‘creative industry’ properly speaking with a robust value chain of creators (writers), producers and reproducers (printers), marketers and distributors (publishers, booksellers) and consumers (populations increasingly literate in the vernacular language). • The digital revolution is ‘building local [and regional, and national] and going global’ by drawing on distinctive cultural and creative resources – ‘content’ - to engage global markets. ‘Glocalism’ is the name of the game for content creators in any form or genre.

8. Cultural Policy’s motto: ‘Only connect…’ (E.M.Forster) • Culture and cultural policy touch on all domains, both quantitative and qualitative: • Employment and economic growth • Quality of life and sense of place • Affiliation, belonging, citizenship • Well being • Celebration and affirmation • Capacity for innovation • New business models, new markets, and new forms of transnational entrepreneurialism. • Inward investment strategies and high growth, high yield cultural tourism – cultural tourists spend more and stay longer. More than 50% of EU tourists identify ‘culture’ as a key determinant in choosing their holiday destination. • Lessons for Portugal?

9. Europe 2020 and Regional Policy: terms of alignment and 'unlocking the potential' • 2010 EU Green Paper: Unlocking the Potential of the Cultural and Creative industries: 'If Europe wants to remain competitive in the changing global environment, it needs to put in place the right conditions for creativity and innovation to flourish in a new entrepreneurial culture.’ – EU President José Manuel Barroso. • Smart growth - economy based on knowledge and innovation • Sustainable growth - resource efficient, greener, more competitive • Inclusive growth - high employment economy delivering social and territorial cohesion • S3: Smart SpecialisationStrategies’…a concentration of resources in an original and rather unique area of knowledge expertise’. ( Being ‘rather unique’ is like being ‘a little bit pregnant’ but I think we know what they are getting at;) • Lessons for Portugal?

10. Creative Europe Programme 2014-2020 'The growing economic role of the culture and creative industries sector is very much in line with the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy.' - A Budget for Europe 2020, Part I, p.17. • New Single Framework Programme with Culture Strand, Media Strand and Transversal Strand • 37% budget increase to €1.8 billion • Cultural and Creative Sectors Facility • ‘Joined-up’ and cross-cutting approach to the CCIs and links with regional agendas, Digital Agenda for Europe, Cohesion Policy, etc

11. The need for a new knowledge base from strategic partnerships between universities, regional agencies, CCI stakeholders. • Need to link the various forms of ‘capital’ in both conceptual and operational terms for policy and practice by addressing and developing indicators and new knowledge and evidence about about culture and its impacts from: • Cultural capital (cultural and other literacies) • Social capital (bonds of trust and reciprocity) • Human capital (‘arts of living, doing, and being’ – capacities and capabilities – AmartyaSen) • Environmental and infrastructural capital ( sense of place, stewardship and custodianship, integrated and strategic cultural mapping and planning, new forms of cultural ‘facility’, broadband capacity and roll-out, internet penetration and use) • Economic capital (employment, turnover, % of GDP/GVA, growth and decline trends, inward investment and tourism potential) • Universities and regional agencies are well-placed to develop this quantitative and qualitative research agenda on a combined stakeholder basis involving government, the CCI sector and industry end-users if they get the right mix.

12. Universities and the knowledge base Need for: • Interdisciplinary (knowledge) convergence - beyond silos, departments, disciplines, compartments. • Strategic partnerships attuned to new policy agendas ( Australian SPIRT). • Co-operative and collaborative work within and between disciplines and beyond ‘fiefdoms’. • Appropriate funding and results architecture not simply based on the published monograph or chapter or the refereed journal artcile– commissioned research too. • Stakeholder research management and planning scenarios including end-users of research and communities

13. So, Creative Europe, meet Creative Portugal… … and discover really, not ‘rather’ unique local and regional resources you may not have been aware of. For more on this theme and all the concepts and themes addressed in this presentation you can consult my 2002 book Towards Cultural Citizenship: Tools for Cultural Policy and Development which has been placed as a PDF file in the S3 Seminar ‘Dropbox’ and there’s more on my website at http://sites.google.com/site/colinmercer52/home/publications or my web page on http://www.academia.edu/