During 21-22 May 2019 IDM Creative Industries Cluster participated at the RCIA (Regional Creative Industries Alliance) Interreg Europe project meeting in Cluj – Napoca in Romania. It was an excellent opportunity to learn about structures in other European regions supporting cross – sectorial collaboration from the perspective of creative industries. On this ocation we introduced our MATCH! Program by which we support the collaboration between student designers and SMEs from other industries. Right now we are in the middle of MATCH! #2 where the focus is on Food and Waste and 12 students of the product design class of the Free University of Bolzano are collaborating and creating innovative ideas and prototypes together with 8 companies from the South Tyrolean food sector. Looking at the next steps that the project partners are planning to undertake towards implementing actions to support the CCI development, it was important to note that many such actions are related to clusters as it is the case in Austria, Romania, Poland, Latvia and Spain, thus creating for our cluster interesting opportunities to further collaborate with them in the future. It was particularly inspiring to see how in Cluj collaboration between Creative Industries, Furniture and IT clusters led to a 5,6 Mio. Euro Project funded by the European Commission, aiming to address the challenges of future work in smart cities. And that is also something which could be interesting for the challenges we face in South Tyrol in the city of Bolzano. Through the exchange and learnings it was useful as well to see how Wallonia supports the development of creative hubs in the region. In South Tyrol we are also developing an Innovation and Start Up Hub, BASIS, where there are also planned structures for Creative Industries, especially for the audiovisual sector.  

For more information contact us at renate.ranzi [at] idm-suedtirol.com