Culture as a source of
economic and social value:
Perspectives for the 20142020 EU policy cycle
PIER LUIGI SACCO
Dean, Faculty of Arts, Markets, and
Heritage
IULM University Milan
Cultural and creative industries in a
regional perspective - I
• The remarkable growth and success of cultural and creative
industries in the last decade has brought considerable
attention upon the direct economic impact of cultural
production
• In order to maintain a proper and effective developmental
approach, however, we need a conceptual scheme that allows
us to understand (and capitalize) the indirect socio-economic
effects of cultural production
• Also, we have to keep into account that the new paradigms of
cultural production do not necessarily use the market as the
value-generating platform (communities of practice)
Cultural and creative industries in a
regional perspective - II
• At the regional level, each region will have its own proper mix
of direct and indirect culture-based value generating
processes, defining a specific local model (clustering pattern)
• Culture-led development does not concern urban areas only,
but also rural and low-density ones
• The developmental potential of cultural and creative
industries requires that they are seen not as an isolated
sector, however promising, but as the backbone of a new
information, knowledge and content-based economy that
infiltrates all aspects of everyday life
• In this context, cultural policies may become a major lever of
regional policy
From Culture 1.0 to 3.0
• 1.0: pre-industrial, small audiences, absorbs resources but does not
generate turnover, author/craftsman; at the end of the value chain
• First major revolution: technologies that enhance reproducibility and
demand
• 2.0: cultural industry, large audiences, generates turnover, author vs.
audience, a specific sector of the economy (a specific value chain)
• Second major revolution: technologies that enhance participation and
production
• 3.0: communities of practice and not only markets, generates turnover but
also indirect non-market value, prosumers and user generated content, a
pervasive dimension that permeates the whole economy (culturalization
of the economy and culturally mediated value); at the root of the value
chain
Regions with the largest CCIs size
(employment clusters)
Ile de France (Paris)
Inner London
Lombardia (Milan)
West-Nederland (Amsterdam)
Madrid
Catalunya (Barcelona)
Denmark
Lazio (Roma)
Oberbayern (Muenchen)
Stockolm
Budapest
Outer London
Berks, Buck and Oxon (Oxford)
Atthiki (Athens)
Oost-Nederland (Nijmegen)
Andalucia (Sevilla)
Ireland
Zuid-Nederland (Maastricht)
Darmstadt (Frankfurt aM)
Piemonte (Torino)
Regions with the best CCIs focus
Inner London
Stockolm
Praha
Bratislavsky kray
(Bratislava)
Berks, Bucks and Oxon
(Oxford)
Hamburg
Budapest
Oslo
Oberbayern (Muenchen)
Karlsruhe
Madrid
West-Nederland
(Amsterdam)
Berlin
Ile de France (Paris)
Lazio (Roma)
Regions with the best
growth dynamics in CCIs
Niederoesterreich (St Polten)
Salzburg
Oberoesterreich (Linz)
Asturias (Oviedo)
Zapadne Slovensko (Nitra)
Cumbria (Carlisle)
La Rioja (Logrono)
Andalucia (Sevilla)
Hants/Isle of Wight
(Southampton)
Castilla-La Mancha (Toledo)
Jihovychod (Brno)
Pais Vasco (Bilbao)
Murcia
Valencia
Kaernten (Klagenfurt)
Lietuva
Galicia (A Coruna)
Picardie (Amiens)
Nyugat-Danantul (Gyor)
An 8-tiers approach to the indirect effects
of cultural production (and participation)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Innovation
Welfare
Sustainability
Social cohesion
New entrepreneurship
Soft power
Local identity
Knowledge economy
Innovation
Ranking Innovation Scoreboard 2008
(UE15)
1 Sweden
2 Finland
3 Denmark
4 Germany
5 Netherlands
6 France
7 Austria
8 UK
9 Belgium
10 Luxemburg
(UE27 average)
11 Ireland
12 Spain
13 Italy
14 Portugal
15 Greece
Ranking Active cultural participation
Eurobarometer 2007 (UE15)
1 Sweden
2 Luxemburg
3 Finland
4 France
5 Denmark
6 Netherlands
7 Belgium
8 Germany
9 UK
10 Austria
(UE27 average)
11 Ireland
12 Italy
13 Spain
14 Greece
15 Portugal
Culture as a pre-innovation platform?
Culture as a ‘pre-innovation’ platform
Active cultural participation stimulates the capability building of
people in terms of attitudes toward the un-experienced:
• questioning one’s beliefs and world views,
• getting acquainted with, and assigning value to, cultural
diversity,
• learning to appreciate the transformational impact of new
ideas,
• building new expressive and conceptual skills…

Strong link with innovation systems
Speaking of impact…
• In terms of macroeconomic impact, the indirect
impact of active cultural participation in terms of
innovation could be as relevant as the direct one of
the cultural and creative industries’ turnover;
• Moreover, it may have effects on all sectors;
• It is likely to be even more important in terms of
securing the long-term competitiveness of the
economy
• We may look at regional systems of innovation from
a new perspective
Welfare
• There is a strong statistical association
between life expectancy and cultural
participation (Konlaan et al, 2000)
• There is an equally strong association
between cultural participation and
psychological well-being (The Italian culture
and well-being study, IULM/Bracco)
Hierarchy of factors affecting
psychological well-being
Hierarchy of factors affecting
psychological well-being
1 Diseases
2 Cultural participation
3 Income
4 Age
5 Education
6 Gender
7 Job
8 Geography
Classical music concerts
Theatre
Which single variables have the strongest impact on SWB?
Towards a cultural welfare perspective?
Towards a cultural welfare perspective?
• The well-being impact of cultural participation is especially
strong among the severely ill and the elderly
• Systematic cultural participation in these categories might
bring about substantial improvement in their quality of life
• At the same time, cultural participation might significantly
reduce hospitalization frequency and duration for chronic
pathologies
• If this is true, the whole program could be financed through
the consequential saving on general welfare costs
Sustainability
• There is a strong relationship between performance of
differentiated waste recycling systems and cultural
participation (Crociata, Lilla and Sacco, 2011): the cognitive
development from cultural participation spills over to
motivation and ability to classify different waste items
• An indirect systemic effect similar to the innovation one in
fostering awareness toward the consequences of individual
behaviors for the environmental common good (Agenda 21):
from innovation systems to sustainability systems?
Cultural access and waste recycling
Does culture improve recycling?
Does culture improve recycling?
• The answer is yes: people with access to cultural
experiences recycle more, no matter whether recycle
bins are close to or far away from home: not only
better capacity, but also better motivation
• There is a statistically significant causal relationship
from cultural attitudes to recycling habits
• The same mechanisms are likely to work also for other
forms of environmental responsibility (reduced use of
pollutants, resort to ‘green’ mobility networks,
etcetera)  more ongoing research
• Does relatively poorer performance in recycling of
MED countries relate to poor levels of cultural
participation?
Best 10 EU15 Capital cities
for waste management and land use
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Amsterdam
Helsinki
Berlin
Vienna
Copenhagen
Stockholm
Brussels
London
Paris
Dublin
Social cohesion
• certain types of cultural projects may produce strong and significant
effects in terms of juvenile crime prevention, pro-social vocational
orientation, or conflict resolution (Abreu program, projeto Axé, etc.)
• these projects are generally focused on active cultural participation,
as it is made possible for instance by programs of music education
• the indirect effect of cultural participation on social cohesion is the
overcoming of self- and others-stereotyping as provoked by
incumbent social prejudices, often linked to ethnicity factors
• the Maisons Folie system of cultural facilities realized by the Région
Nord-Pas de Calais in the context of Lille 2004 European Culture
Capital
New entrepreneurship
• the cultural and creative field may be a powerful incubator of new
forms of entrepreneurship
• the rapid growth of the online content industries, just to make a
particularly evident example, is creating the stage for a new
entrepreneurial cultural with a strong generational basis
• the development of creative entrepreneurship still lags behind
substantially if compared to the attention and resources devoted to
development and support of entrepreneurship in other sectors of
the economy
• these new forms of entrepreneurship could improve significantly
the employability of graduates from the humanities sectors, which
are commonly considered to have a weaker employability potential
than the graduates from quantitative and technology areas
Soft power
• cultural and creative production may contribute to a great
extent to increase the visibility, reputation and
authoritativeness of a country/region at all levels of
international relationships, from the political to the economic
• high level of soft power may open up new markets to
national/regional products through the identification and
emulation dynamics which are typical of post-industrial
consumption, may attract more visitors, talents and
investments, may stimulate new, sophisticated strategies of
value creation through branding and marketing tools
The IfG/Monocle ranking
of soft power
1 UK
1 France
3USA
4 Germany
5 Switzerland
6 Sweden
7 Denmark
8 Australia
9 Finland
10 Netherlands
11 Spain
12 Canada
13 Singapore
14 Norway
15 Japan
16 Italy
17 China
18 Israel
19 Korea
20 South Africa
20 Brazil
22 Mexico
23 India
24 UAE
25 Turkey
26 Russia
Knowledge society
• the association between active cultural participation and
lifelong learning is a pretty natural one, and unlike others is
not particularly surprising
• one might even think of active cultural participation as a
specific form of lifelong learning
• as lifelong learning is well targeted by structural funds
programming and takes a central place in EU long-term
strategies, it could be of interest to launch and pursue
innovative programs and actions that exploit the strategic
complementarities between the former and culturally and
creatively based communities of practice as instances of
advanced platforms of cultural and creative production
Local identity
Local identity
• considerable emphasis has been put on the role of the
installment of new, spectacular cultural facilities in the
catering for global visibility of one specific urban or regional
milieu
• but the developmental potential of a culturally-rebuilt local
identity lies in the capacity to stimulate new dynamics of
production of cultural content and new modes of cultural
access by the local community, as a consequences of the new
opportunities created by the attraction of outside resources
• example: the Newcastle/Gateshead urban renewal strategy
The usual objection…
• Yes but…doesn’t all this eventually depend on
income after all?
• Not likely: countries with relatively high per capita
income perform poorly in innovation (Ireland)
• Moreover: cultural access is more important than
income in determining well-being
• Also: Madrid and Rome have a higher per capita
income than Berlin but fare much worse in terms of
waste recycling…
• …whereas cultural participation reflects the
performance in the above dimensions much more
accurately
In a nutshell…
• Culture is not simply a large and important sector of the economy,
it is a ‘social software’ that is badly needed to manage the
complexity of contemporary regional societies and economies in all
of its manifold implications
• The total indirect macroeconomic impact of cultural participation
is likely to be much bigger than the (already remarkable) direct one
• Once we become able to measure the indirect effects of culture on
the various dimensions (to ‘capitalize’ culture), it will be possible to
bring cultural policy at the top ranks of the policy agenda
• These effects are further strengthened by the growth of the cultural
and creative industries, but only insofar as such growth is as
inclusive and participative as possible
Priorities
• Cultural participation must be as inclusive as possible
• Cultural participation must be as active as possible
• Cultural participation has not to do mainly with
entertainment, but with learning, capability building and skill
development, and overall quality of life
• Cultural participation as an indicator of a region’s propensity
to change and innovation
• Cultural participation as a new factor of smart growth
• Cultural participation as a new driver for sustainable use of
resources and for more efficient welfare expenditure
• Cultural participation as a ‘shock therapy’ for social
mobilization
Some potential policy guidelines
• Culture and innovation + culture and knowledge society:
fostering more pro-active cultural participation and linking it
better to a ‘creative’ knowledge society
• Culture and well-being: developing a systematic cultural
welfare program
• Culture and soft power + culture and local identity:
developing a new, more effective strategy at the regional level
• Culture and new entrepreneurship: providing incentives to
attract the skilled young
 A creativity-intensive model of capability through even
more direct and pro-active cultural participation
EU Strategies and methods of
investment
• root culture and creative production much more deeply and
substantially into the 2020 agenda, and thus in the future of
cohesion policy
• resources available for culture-based policies under structural
funds must at least equal the size and growth potential of the
cultural and creative sector (indirect ones included?)
• structural funds in the 2014-2020 cycle should combine
infrastructural investment, human and social capital
investment and exchange of practices
• structural funds in the 2014-2020 cycle should combine
earmarked funding of instruments and strands specifically
devoted to culture and cultural industries, both for direct and
indirect channels
EU Strategies and methods cont’d
• structural funds in the 2014-2020 cycle should foster better
recognition and integration of the cultural dimension of
development in the overall support frameworks
• the new regional policy of the EU must ask future
beneficiaries of structural funds to compulsorily include
culture in each ‘national strategic reference program’
(nations) and in each ‘operational program’ (regions),
otherwise they are not accepted
• the EU should provide explicit guidance on how to include
culture effectively in these instruments (the 8+1 tiers scheme)
• such instruments have to be built from partnerships between
regions, cultural institutions, civil society and business
EU Operational objectives - broad
• gathering and disseminating good practices in the field
• promoting the formation of regional clusters and international
networks of clusters, and identifying the already excellent
ones as benchmarks
• developing new administrative and institutional capacity to
help regional and local authorities dealing with economic
growth, social policy, territorial development and education to
include new culture-based strategies in their programs
• favoring a simplification and a broader accessibility of the
structural funds for cultural and creative players
• involving cultural stakeholders in all policy dialogues and in all
steps of the implementation of EU cohesion policy
EU Operational objectives –
specific (examples)
• better measurement of the direct and indirect social and economic effects
of cultural and creative production
• incentivating cross contamination between cultural and creative and noncultural and creative value chains (cultural welfare, culture-based social
cohesion, culture-based sustainability etc.) through specific leadership
programs
• defining emergent professional profiles and skills in the cultural and
creative fields and their occupational and entrepreneurship potential
• promoting new incubators and innovation parks with a strong cultural and
creative component
• gathering a group of experts in local cultural development and governance
that work in close contact with DG REGIO in order to boost the cultural
dimension of 2014-2020 policy and programmes
Thanks!
pierluigi.sacco@iulm.it
@PierLuigiSacco