In 2014, I was working at SAMOA, an Agency for urban regeneration on the Isle of Nantes (France). My colleague, Hélène Morteau, was finalising her PhD study on creative clusters and urban redevelopment while we were involved in the European Creative Industries Alliance. Among the tasks to perform, we had to exchange good practices and share the knowledge we were producing with our partners beyond the European continent.
We got in touch with the University of Chicago and its Cultural Policy Center , and we discovered that they were planning to expand their network in Europe, and namely in France.
This mutual interest resulted in the organisation of the 2015 Paris Convening of the University of Chicago on Urban Cultural Projects: Research, Practice, Policy.
During this time, world renowned experts met to discuss their findings about cultural projects in the urban environment.
My role, in addition to supporting the organisation, networking, and logistic effort, was to promote the urban redevelopment project of Nantes. This was a very good opportunity to reinforce its brand development.