04/01/2017 Liberale Donato

Den-Cupid – Digital Educational Network for Cultural projects’ implementation and direction

Futuro digitale is a partner of the project

DEN-Cupid

ID Project: 2016-EL01-KA202-023542

Running dates: 01-09-2016/31-08-2019

Partners:

    • E-TRIKALA AE  (Greece)
    • Hellenic National Commission UNESCO (Greece)
    • E.G.T.C. Amphictyony (Greece)
    • Futuro Digitale (Italy)
    • Vea Qualitas, S. L. (Spain)
    • Time Heritage (Greece)
    • UNION OF BULGARIAN BLACK SEA LOCAL AUTHORITIES SDRUZHENIE (Bulgaria)
    • University of Patras (Greece)

Website: www.den-cupid.eu

Summary

DEN-CuPID is a Strategic Partnership between SMEs, academic institutions and Local Authorities associations, which aims primarily at improving transversal competencies, such as entrepreneurship and managerial skills, and at enhancing knowledge of people active professionally or voluntarily in the field of cultural management. It envisages the optimization of local capacities in designing and implementing projects based on the local cultural endowment, as well as the ability to involve financial and funding tools, particularly innovative ones, for the accomplishment of these projects. Culture is a rather ill-funded field nowadays, and thus the need for fostering innovation in this field is even more urgent, in order for local societies to be able to turn cultural heritage and cultural activity to a lever of sustainable development. Such change is also hindered by an actual mismatch in the training background of people working in the field of culture and the actual need for innovative approaches and projects. DEN-CuPID aims to address these issues by developing an innovative education and networking platform and a training course comprising a dual learning approach, to ensure the prolonged development of skills throughout the working life of people, and to better match transversal competencies with the actual demands, in alignment with the 2020 agenda for new skills and jobs. At the same time, DEN-CuPID approach is very well compatible with fast-developing Local and Regional branding processes. Therefore, the project’s results and good practices are expected to stimulate, enhance, and be incorporated into a broader strategy developed by local and regional authorities towards Local and Regional branding, which could break through existing restrictions of sector-oriented approaches to localized development.

Results

The expected results of the project include the following:

  • Building of local and trans-local networks for the viable and constant integration of cultural capital in development strategies. The project will set the necessary conditions for the building of cooperation networks between various local agents from the fields of research, heritage management and economy (museums, historical archives, university departments, schools, cultural associations, NGOs for social inclusion, tour operators, cooperatives and companies specializing in local products, small and medium-scale enterprises in tourism, environmental organizations etc.) under the coordination of municipal institutions. The inclusion of cultural capital in development strategies is frequently confined to superficial and short-term activities, such as mass tourism, which are often destructive for both the environmental and the social landscape. The project’s expected result is the formation of balanced, multifaceted and flexible approaches to cultural heritage and production that will diffuse viable economic and social benefit.
  • Setting of conditions for low-cost development through the formation of clustered economies of scale. The building of specialized skills and the gathering of experience will give the municipal branches the competence to mobilize efficiently and quickly local agents for the implementation of actions and projects regarding cultural heritage. On the other hand, the diffusion of knowledge and experience will enable local agents to take the initiative and use the existing cooperation networks for the creation of new projects.
  • Synergies between relevant stakeholders.

The project will result in contributing to strategies of social inclusion through the positive evaluation and acclaim of culture as a social process. Moreover, the project will result in inspiring various stakeholders (public and municipal authorities, civil society, local businesses, NGOs etc) to create synergies for the establishment of successful projects and for minimizing social friction concerning the implementations of regulations and plans (a problem often faced in local societies) in order to build long-lasting and sustainable activities around cultural heritage and cultural activity.