Project information

PROJECT TITLE: Make Creative Villages - Initiate Cooperation between CCI and Villages- Mac Village

Duration: 36 month / 1^st April 2019 to 30^th September 2021

Project partners:

• Lead partner: TGZ PM Technology and Business Incubator Centre Potsdam-Mittelmark GmbH, Germany
• Project partner 2: SRH Hochschule Berlin, Germany
• Project partner 3: Authentic Villages of Italy Association, Italy
• Project partner 4: Regional Management Burgenland, Austria
• Project partner 5: BSC, Business support centre Ltd. Kranj, Slovenia
• Project partner 6: E-institute, institute for comprehensive development solutions Ptuj, Slovenia
• Project partner 7: DDTG Danube Development Transnational Group nonprofit limited liability company, Hungary
• Project partner 8: Cultural Labour Social Cooperative, Hungary

Summary of the project:

Actors in rural areas often lack innovation competences and the methods to initiate cooperation with innovative enterprises. Thus, companies from the creative industries have only occasionally been seen as a potential cooperation partner for villages to develop their manifold local cultural resources and to find innovative ideas to preserve the attractiveness of the region.

Creative industry in rural areas is an untapped potential in Central Europe. Developing the creative sector in rural areas has the potential to generate sustainable and quality enterprises as well as employment opportunities and contribute to rural diversification.

This is where the project Mac Village starts. The main objective of the project is to develop an easy-to-apply methodology in an iterative process for the local and regional level to initiate innovations in cooperation with CCI enterprises. Basis is the Frugal Innovation concept which responds to limitations in resources, which are also found in rural areas. A range of innovation methods will be tested in three villages per partner region and further developed. The methods are easy to use and promote a rapid and joint development of competence and innovative networking. The project brings together people from different fields (local authorities and stakeholders, regions, business development agencies and organisations with specific competence in CCI and social entrepreneurship) and gathers them in a multi-level dialogue.

The project will implement 54 innovation workshops in six regions in DE, AT, IT, SI and HU promoting the cooperation among local actors and CCI. More than 200 stakeholders will be trained to enable them to implement the innovation methods developed in the project. By doing so local actors in the villages will be able to create favourable local conditions for CCI and innovative networks for new products and services exploiting their cultural resources and develop new businesses.

Project main objectives

• to develop a methodology (with handbook) for the local and regional level,
• to initiate innovations in cooperation with CCI enterprises and artists and
• to strengthen the methodological competence of these players.

Project results

Coherent with the result indicator, the project will lead to an increased capacity of the public (local players in villages and rural towns) and the private sector (CCI enterprises) to develop local and regional cultural resources in an economical and sustainable way. The skills of the involved and trained players to develop their region from bottom-up will be increased. The local and regional players will have a better understanding of the potential of CCI for regional development and the requirements, these enterprises have to be able to flourish and to innovate. Creative enterprises will better understand the opportunities villages and rural towns can offer as a location and as cooperation partners to develop and use the cultural resources to create new products and services. They will be able to apply innovation methods on their own. One focus will be building up creative scenes networks which could end up in creative milieus in the rural partner regions. Other actors than the ones directly involved will be trained and learn to better understand the economy of the CCI and apply the innovation methods. Finally, the project offers the chance to create more jobs in rural areas, to settle more enterprises from the CCI in rural areas and hence contribute to diminishing the impact of demographic change.

Project website: https://www.interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/MaC-Village.html

Mac Village is supported by the INTERREG Central Europe Programme of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Total co-financing amounts to 1.166.174,16 EUR.