Development of Region Study on Creative-Traditional Business Partnership Platform
The European Union aims at making Creative Industries (CI) more visible, emphasizing the change of the European economy from traditional production towards services and innovation. CI has great potential and is considered strategic for the development of the regions. As producers of intellectual property, the CI may be a particularly attractive source of external knowledge for innovating firms. They offer diverse creative products and services which can be integrated into the innovation process of other businesses.
Although there is an agreement that collaboration between the creative and traditional business sectors results in cross-innovation, there is still no proper understanding of the mechanism behind the successful collaboration.
Though a broad variety of industries benefits from the direct and indirect demand generated by the creative industries, often traditional business companies cannot assess the value of creative services for their enterprise adequately. Current practices in engaging in creative-traditional business collaborations are still very few.
The study on the Creative-Traditional Business Partnership Platform shows the overall state of the play of cross-sectoral collaboration in the concerned traditional and CI sectors, what are future outlooks, how to implement efficiently cross-sectoral collaboration, build partnerships on the long-term incl. recommendations for all target groups.
The framework of the study involves focusing on a few creative industries, namely architecture (naval architects), design (industrial, graphic, interior and interaction), advertising and software & games that exist in each target region.
Increasing focus on innovation in business gave rise to an interest in the knowledge and methods, which are used in the CI. Though creative industries can be considered as part of the business economy, they are distinguished from the business sector by the products and services they offer. As a result of the creative process, creative industries can offer highly original and unique products and services. Thus, in order to facilitate development, growth, change, and transformation, businesses shall not miss opportunities to learn from creative industries.
The target regions of the CTCC project include the following administrative units: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern region (Germany), Zachodniopomorskie region (Poland), Warminsko-Mazurskie region (Poland), Pomorskie region (Poland) and Sydsverige region (Sweden), and Klaipėda County with Telšiai County (Lithuania).
10 partners representing local and regional actors from 4 South Baltic Sea Region countries–Germany, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden—are involved in the Project activities (the eligible area of the South Baltic Cross-border Co-operating Programme).
Pic. №1 South Baltic Sea Region countries involved in the CTCC project
General innovation performance per Region:
- Sydsverige (SE) is an Innovation Leader, however, its innovation performance has decreased in 2011-2017;
- Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (DE) is a Strong Innovator, and innovation performance has increased in 2011-2017;
- Zachodniopomorskie and Pomorskie (PL) are a Moderate Innovators, and innovation performance has increased slightly in 2011-2017;
- Lithuania is a Moderate Innovator; in 2010-2016 its performance has increased by 21% relative to that of the EU;
- Warminsko-Mazurskie (PL) is a Modest Innovator, and innovation performance has decreased in 2011-2017
Seeking to find out supply capacity of creative industries in fostering innovation and identify the scale of cooperation with traditional businesses, the qualitative data (derived from qualitative interviews and focus groups conducted with representatives of creative and traditional business enterprises in target regions) were collected, that made it possible to reveal the creative companies’ attitudes towards cross-sectoral cooperation, the motives, and barriers to engaging in such cooperation.