La Baule is a French seaside resort that consolidated its position as a national tourist hub growing into a small size city. The shift from leisure destination to an organic urban area required an upgrade of its infrastructure. In addition, being the home of one of the most beautiful French bays, the threat of environmental risks prompted the project for a complete renewal of its seafront. My role has been to explore and define the European funding opportunities that could co-finance the urban redevelopment of the promenade.
DeuS is an Erasmus+ Vocational Educational Training (VET) project, coordinated by the Matera – Basilicata 2019 Foundation, that aims to co-create a European-wide learning and training approach in critical thinking and entrepreneurship to find participatory, creative, and cost-effective solutions to local challenges, by unlocking the potential of the cultural and creative sector. The project brings together relevant players from the cultural and creative sector from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Slovakia and UK. The DeuS project is shaped around the unique Open Design School, a pillar project of Matera 2019 (Italy), European Capital of Culture. It is a design laboratory using a peer-to-peer challenged based approach, where professionals of any discipline work together and share knowledge and expertise while designing, prototyping, delivering and testing design solutions. The Open Design School methodology goes one step further than existing design thinking processes by applying real solutions to real problems, validated by real people: it transforms applied research in the real domain. In the process, DeuS works as a “think and do tank” where professionals with different backgrounds can upskill and re-skill while responding collaboratively to current societal and economic challenges. My role in 2021 was to support the production of 10 Living Labs, one for each partnering organization, to test and integrate the Open Design methodology in solving local challenges.
In the frame of the Deus project financed by the Erasmus+ programme of the EU, I have conceived a new format to rebrand the final conference of the project, in the shape of a pop-up radio, featuring radio shows led by each partnering organization. The event took place in 2021.
In 2009, while working on the cross-border projects of the Euroregion Pyrenees -Mediterranean, I had the mandate to promote the results of projects that were already in their execution phase. That was the case of the transnational mountain hospital built thanks to an EU Interreg fund, at the border between France and Spain, in the Cerdanya valley.
In 2013 and 2014, the DG Education Audio-visual and Culture of the European Commission was analysing the impact of its previous actions. It turned out that a great amount of good practices detected in past projects were followed by a low degree of transfer capacity.
From this take, the European Commission launched the Culture for Cities and Regions project, and subsequently for the participating cities.
My role as Head of International development of SAMOA, an agency for urban redevelopment in Nantes, was to contribute to the renown of Nantes as a European hub for urban planning and creative industries. For this reason, together with the staff of the Nantes Metropolitan Authority, we applied as a case study to be visited.
This €1 million project funded under the Creative Europe programme (DG EAC) aims to take stock of existing practices all over Europe in order to exchange and promote transfer of knowledge, to better understand successful cases of cultural investment, and to go into the details of policy planning and implementation. By making sure that cities and regions involved in the project place culture at the heart of their territorial development strategies, we aim for long lasting results that will be widely shared and showcased widely in Europe.
The purpose of the project is also to go beyond the study visits – on the one hand, with the provision of follow-up coaching to cities/regional administrations, which took part in the visits, in order to maximize its impact; and on the other hand, by reaching a larger number of interested parties through a broad dissemination of information (development of an online catalogue, website, newsletter, use of social media).
Three main dimensions will be explored throughout this project:
-culture and the creative industries for local economic development and urban regeneration
-cultural heritage as a driver for economic growth and social inclusion
-culture for social inclusion, social innovation and intercultural dialogue
During its three years, the project produced a catalogue of 70 case studies, organised 15 thematic study visits, and provided expert coaching for 10 cities/regions.
When the United Nations University decided to open a branch in Barcelona, devoted to higher education and academic research in the field of sociology and migrations, the Government of Catalonia and the City of Barcelona proposed a partnership. It included the possibility for the international organisation to use a prestigious landmark building in the city, a pavilion of the Hospital de Sant Pau.
The world famous modernist location had to be renovated to meet the operational and safety standards.
The local government decided to employ the European Regional Development Funds for this investment. It meant to be extremely cost-wise and careful from the architectural, legal and financial point of view.
My role was to support the financial auditing and the certification of the expenditures associated with the renovation works of the pavilion later hosting the University of the United Nations.
OpenArch was a cooperation initiative to develop and enhance a network of Archaeological Open Air Museums throughout Europe with the aim of improving the public experience at such museums.
The project fostered creativity and innovation, especially in relation to the opportunities offered through better interaction between Archaeological Open Air Museums and their surrounding communities.
The project included a set of staff exchanges and a sequence of pilot actions in some selected locations, part of the international network of open air archeological museums.
My role was to support the preparation of the project proposal and its application to the call of the Culture Programme of the European Union in 2009 and 2010, and the definition of the budget and the financial follow-up.
The Art Directors Club of Europe is a non-profit organization founded in 1990 to promote the best creative work in design and advertising from across the continent.
In 2012, I was asked to conceive and draft the project to be submitted to the EU Culture Programme. The ADCE was subsequently awarded with €100,000 for its work as an international platform active in the field of cultural and creative industries.
Mire is a French association promoting cinema, experimental motion pictures and film processed audiovisual.
It enrolled in the capacity building programme that I implemented at the “Creative Factory” cluster in Nantes, to learn how to conceive and draft a project application to a call of the European Union. They applied in 2014 to a call of the Creative Europe programme and their project project “REENGINEERING THE MOVING IMAGE” was awarded a grant of 127.872,91 euros.
European Music Incubator aimed at develop musicians international careers as well as work on capacity building for entrepreneurship for artists in the music industry.
The project was designed and written by Trempolino, a French association already active in supporting local musicians.
Trempolino enrolled in the capacity building programme that I put in place at the “Creative Factory” cluster in Nantes, to learn how to obtain European funds for cooperation project.
The initiative was succesfully financed by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union in 2016 with a grant of 199,607.17 euros. https://music-incubator.eu/
