Chair of Leadership and Organization - Prof. Dr. Thomas Steger

The EU Interreg Central Europe Project STIMULART aims to uncover and support the potential of cultural and creative industries (CCI) in five medium sized European cities in four EU countries. The social and economic development of the partner cities shall be dynamised and creative young people shall be motivated to stay in their home cities by unleashing the potential of local cultural resources with the help of the CCI.

The following organisations are partners in STIMULART:

Municipality of Jászberény in Hungary (Lead Partner)
Jászkerület Non-profit Ltd. (Hungary)
The Municipality of Kamnik in Slovenia,
Institute for Tourism, Sports & Culture of Kamnik (Slovenia)
Municipality of Vittorio Veneto in Italy
Bclever s.r.l.r. (Italy)
City of Amberg in Germany
University of Regensburg (Germany)
City of Naumburg an der Saale in Germany.

The chair of leadership and organisation of University Regensburg is the scientific partner in the project, the so called “horizontal knowledge partner”. The role of the University of Regensburg in STIMULART is to conduct basic research about the particular conditions of CCI development in medium sized cities, to provide sound methodological support as well as to ensure both smooth knowledge transfer among the partners and replicability of the final project results across similar cities in the EU.

When compared to larger urban centres, mid-size cities are rather less successful in attracting high value-added, creative activities, innovative services and young talents. This phenomenon has many reasons of which economies of agglomeration are only a part. A lack of knowledge among the administrations about the specifics of the CCI together with a lack of local policies that are adapted to the specific needs of the CCI, a weak visibility of the newly emerging CCI-sector both for outsiders as well as within the CCI, a low degree of networking across the sub-markets of the CCI-sector and between the whole CCI-sector and the traditional business sectors, a weak recognition of the creative potential of local cultural resources and heritage, and weak entrepreneurial attitudes or skills of CCI actors are other factors that may have a hand in the social process in question.

The STIMULART partner cities share the interest in enhancing CCI through a change of organisational and financing frameworks that are aligned with both their national political and cultural framework and their site-specific cultural resources and city identities. They also plan to better employ human and institutional capital, vacant urban infrastructure, and an often neglected source of creativity: local culture and heritage.

The project will combine macro- and micro-level interventions into a cohesive system. CCI actors will be trained to adapt to a changing framework while industry requirements are fed back into policy development. The project will build the capacity of CCI stakeholders in the participating cities with site-specific, yet replicable tools and methods. These will then be made available in a comprehensive CCI repository. Site-specific strategies and action plans will be tested in different pilot actions in each city that include: a CCI mentoring system; a creative mechanism utilising vacant spaces; IT-based CCI networking; a fast-prototyping & user-testing facility; and a dedicated CCI Marketplace.

The STIMULART project is funded by the European Union through the Interreg Central Europe Programme, which is part of the European Regional Development Fund (EDRF).

It was launched on 1st April 2019 with a total duration of 36 months.

It has a total budget of EUR 2.52 million while 80% of this sum is funded by ERDF means (EUR 2,07 million).

Project leader and spokesperson for the chair of leadership and organization of the University Regensburg is Dr. phil. Olaf Kranz

University Regensburg
Faculty for Business Studies
Chair of Ledership and Organisation
Universitätsstraße 31
D-93053 Regensburg
Building RW(L), Room-No. 3.05
Phone: 0941 943-2676
Fax: 0941 943-4206
E-Mail: olaf.kranz@wiwi.uni-regensburg.de

www.uni-regensburg.de/wirtschaftswissenschaften/bwl-steger/team/kranz/index.html

Please, find more information about the project here: www.interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/STIMULART.html