Blog series

Building blocks for a policy framework for the cultural and creative sector

Man indeed does not live by bread alone. The manifold goods and services provided by the Cultural and Creative Sector (CCS) – from the design of the clothes they wear to the music they listen to and from the museums they visit to the festivals…

What is CCS? The importance of CCS representation for EU policy-making

This blog focuses on the representation of the Cultural and Creative Sectors’ (CCS)interests at EU policy level. It proposes a taxonomy of CCS policy networks active at EU-level, highlights challenges in addressing policies relevant to the sector, and proposes ways to improve the level of…

The Eurovision Song Contest: A multifaceted cultural phenomenon and global production network

The Eurovision Song Contest is a unique television format – a co-produced product in which each of the participating countries (both the Host Broadcaster  and the Participating Broadcasters) create and add value. Apart from the live broadcasted three nights of the international music competition (two…

The long path to the global arts scene. Bulgaria at the Venice Biennale

CICERONE is an EU-funded interdisciplinary research project which provides policymakers with a unique and innovative perspective from which to understand the cultural and creative sector (CCS). Previous analyses of this sector have typically mapped the location and the spatial distribution of clusters of creative activities….

Quality and trust in jazz music production networks based on the example of the Marcin Wasilewski Trio

CICERONE is an EU-funded interdisciplinary research project which provides policymakers with a unique and innovative perspective from which to understand the cultural and creative sector (CCS). Previous analyses of this sector have typically mapped the location and the spatial distribution of clusters of creative activities….

Towards responsible fashion: Learning from a sustainable and slow fashion collection’s global production network

CICERONE, which is the acronym for Creative Industries Cultural Economy Production Network, is an EU-funded interdisciplinary research project which provides policymakers with a unique and innovative perspective from which to understand the cultural and creative sector (CCS). Previous analyses of this sector have typically mapped…

The intangible cultural heritage of the Wiener Heurigenkultur

Wiener Heurigenkultur is a practice that involves the tradition of going to the Heurigen, which resemble wine bars and are mostly ran by families. Apart from drinking wine at the Heurigen, the practice also involves singing or listening to traditional Viennese music – the so…

Using digital techniques to empower the architect: the case of architectural practice Studio RAP

An eye-catching, almost sculptured acoustic wall prominently features in the newly built Theater Zuidplein, which is located in an urban renewal area in the south of Rotterdam, The Netherlands. This acoustic wall has been designed by Studio RAP, a young and upcoming architectural practice located…

Sustainability and digitalisation: fashion industry adapting to the COVID-19 crisis

One of the aims of the CICERONE project is to understand the (global) organisation of production in the cultural and creative industries. Due to the pandemic, it has become abundantly clear that this organisation is far from static. In the fashion industry, the COVID-19 crisis…

New problems trigger new creative responses. The effects of the pandemic on our research

In February 2020, nobody could possibly imagine how much our lives would change from that point onwards, and in how many different ways. At that time we were travelling to our Horizon2020 CICERONE consortium meeting in Barcelona to meet with our project partners from all…

Bulgaria’s cultural and creative industries; policies and financing

Culture and the cultural and creative industries are among the most affected sectors in Bulgaria at the national level in the last months of the crisis caused by COVID-19. As early as March 8, 2020, cultural institutions were closed and cultural events were canceled indefinitely….

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times”.* The CCS’ window of opportunity for research and advocacy in time of COVID19

Looking into the life-threatening consequences that the virus is having on the cultural sector – on its workers, businesses and cultural diversity ­– it seems impossible to find a possible bright side of the corona pandemic on the European cultural ecosystem. However, in the face…

Rethink and Renew: what we can learn from Visual Artist Sibumski

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good as the saying goes. Although the CCIs have been hit very hard on the whole, the Covid-19 situation has benefited some in one way or another, either consciously or accidentally. Simon Uyterlinde just graduated from a…

Swedish exceptionalism, or maybe not? Covid-19 and the live music scene

The details of how the production networks and the related places are affected by the current pandemic will be studied throughout the CICERONE-project. However, we already now know that the different regulations put in place during the pandemic strikes very differently. In the Swedish case…

Accelerating the future: Guallart’s vision of architecture in times of uncertainty

The pandemic is clearly affecting the way we work or live.  Resilience and adaptation are the new motto these days.  This is true for many creative sectors but specially for architecture as it defines and shapes the cities and places of tomorrow.  Technology and sustainability…

Support for artists and cultural and creative industries before and during Covid-19

In 2017, Dorota Ilczuk together with the team of the Centre for Creative Economy Research at the University of SWPS published the “Support for artists and creators. International perspective“. It was the first in a series of reports that the experts of the Polish Conference…

The great empty – How social distancing is changing cities and culture?

Culture is produced, reproduced and consumed in cities. Thanks to the development of dense and diversified (economic and social) networks of relations, cities have always been places where the production of culture concentrates and circulates; the urban experience has always been crucial for the development…

Tourism, CCIs and Covid-19

Borders are closed, travel restrictions are issued and unemployment figures are exploding drastically. Particularly the culture and tourism sector were hit hard by the consequences of Covid-19: museums, concert halls, archaeological sites, hotels and gastronomy were closed and were also impacted by the cancellation of…

It’s the Little Things That Count – Small and Medium Enterprises in the Cultural and Creative Industries

It once seemed that large-scale firms would eventually be the sole form of capitalist production. Economies of scale would set in motion a race towards ever larger, vertically integrated firms. Ford’s River Rouge plant in Detroit –a  “… flagship of industrial giantism”[1] – was the…

Shock and crises in the cultural and creative industries

In thinking how to illustrate this blog post on shock and crises in the cultural and creative industries this corona spring, we were thinking of Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings or The Scream, by Edward Munch. The latter captures anxiety on many levels whereas the former…

The impact of the pandemic on the Cultural and Creative Industries in the short and longer run

The oldest proof of figurative paintings by humans was recently found in a cave in Sulawesi, Indonesia. They have been dated some 44,000 years old and people have been painting ever since. Cultural activities are both timeless and resilient: people will keep performing, acting, writing,…