The European Commission has a service for Communication, called DG Comm, which is devoted to the promotion of the activities of the EU and their impact on the ground.
One of the tools is a network called Europe Direct and formed by a set of local points able to inform the citizens as well as redirect their questions to the good contact.
Every three years the label to be a “Europe Direct” information point has to be renovated.
In 2017 my team and I took care of the application to the call for the label of Europe Direct. In spite of the augmented competitiveness and reduced funding availbale, we managed to keep the label, including a grant of 90.000 euros over three years to run the local information point in Nantes (France).
How to engage citizens in the global conversation about the future of the European Union? How to make the decision mechanisms of the EU comprehensible for the broader public? How to explain the importance of voting at the European elections?
Inspired by an experience run in Argentina, “L’Europe, ça decoiffe” is a communication project aiming at awakening the interest for the EU decision process and politics for the general audience and voters.
The application, submitted to a call of the EU Parliament in 2018, was granted with more than 30.000 euros to train hairdressers and barbers about how the EU works and to share this knowledge with their clients at their shops.
In this way, the typical distance of the audience to this kind of topics was reduced by activating a network of “ambassadors”: the hairdressers.
My role was was to conceive, draft and submit this project.
LabTechnoCulturS (Culture and Technology Lab) was a project to apply the usage of information and communication technology to a set of selected spots of the industrial heritage in the Euroregion Pyrenees Mediterranean. My role was to coordinate the project at the Culture Departement of the Government of Catalonia as the leading partner of this cross-border consortium.
Have you ever heard of the problems tourism can generate in city centers? Or a conversation about local souvenirs that may actually be produced elesewhere?
C.U.L.T.U.R.E. aimed to reflect at the role of “culture” in its most wide meaning, such as a common matrix for the selected cities forming the consortium, all awarded with the World Heritage label by Unesco.
The project was a Transnational Cooperation project co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the MED Programme.
A special attention is given to culture as driver for economic growth. The chosen approach was to integrate the knowledge, the practices and the financial tools used by the different level of local governance. Local public players shared the same issues, needs and objectives.
The Consortium was formed by regional and local authorities from Italy, Spain and Greece and Croatia.
My role was to support the financial and administrative follow-up of the Municipality of Tarragona (Spain), as well as the technical support to the project coordination.
We hear about the importance of knowledge and creativity in our daily life and in our working environment. But how we can actually support the cultural and creative sector, to thrive and contribute to a sustainable economic growth?
The European Creative Industries Alliance (ECIA) was an integrated policy initiative that combines policy learning with 8 concrete actions on innovation vouchers, better access to finance and cluster excellence & cooperation. The policy learning platform was the main achievement of the EU funded project. The European Commission integrated in its agenda the policy recommendations produced by the platform.
My role was to coordinate the project, from the operational and financial point of view, at SAMOA (Redevelopment agency of the Isle of Nantes) as one of the six partners.
In addition I steered the team working on the transfer of knowledge in the field of cross-sectoral innovation and internationalisation of SMEs in the sector of cultural and creative industries.
Imagine what would happen to mix public managers, engineers, business owners and artists and to ask them to solve a problem.
Break-in the Desk was a 3 year project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, to create a shared method to facilitate the collaboration between artists & policy makers.
It featured a platform of a cross-cultural european community where businesses and PAs could propose challenges to artists and creatives. The solutions are reached by artistic interventions, art projects, public art etc. involving employees and the audience. The challenges could be in any field such as financial, prototyping, innovation, HR, marketing, communication, social inclusion, diversity, immigration etc.
This new project brings together European artists and creative professionals with the corporate world. Participants sign up to the platform, and are trained to boost their entrepreneurial skills. Next step is a so-called ‘Break-in-action’: the artist comes to work in a SME or company outside the cultural world, bringing fresh ideas on how to spur innovation and enhance organisational values.
Born in the framework of Erasmus + KA2 project “Break–In The Desk”, the Creative Project Canvas is an innovative tool developed to help artists, creative and cultural organizations to reflect on the sustainability of their past, present and future projects.
If you belong to creative and cultural sector and you want to develop entrepreneurial skills do not miss this opportunity and visit www.creativeprojectcanvas.com.
The project is coordinated by Matera Hub, the local development agency of the City of Matera, European Capital of Culture 2019. My role was to coordinated the project for the activities in Nantes and in France, as project leader for the Agency of Urban redevelopment of the Isle of Nantes (SAMOA).
Does your city has some dismissed warehouses? A former industrial area that has been abandoned and squatted?
Refill aimed at creating prototypes of temporary uses in dismissed and abandoned urban areas.
It was an initiative cofinanced by the Urbact programme of the European Union.
While working as Head of International relations at SAMOA Nantes, my role was to support the development of the partnership, the conception of the project as well as the coordination of the local activities.
The western part of the Isle of Nantes was used as a field for pilot actions during the project.
The drafting of the application as well as the operational and financial management were part of my duties.
The Refill project also included the steering of a focus group of local stakeholders who followed up the testing phase and provided it with guidance and feedback. https://refillthecity.wordpress.com/
