Cultural and Creative Enterprises

Cultural and creative enterprises generate about 6% of the Italian wealth (over EUR 90 billion), enriching a production sector that is worth more than EUR 250 billion, with tourism being its main beneficiary, and employing more than 1.5 million people.

The definition of cultural and creative enterprise is constantly evolving, although it essentially refers to the systematization and inclusion of cultural, creative and knowledge-intensive resources, potentially able to generate growth and economic development: the main purpose of these enterprises is to produce, reproduce, promote, distribute and market goods, services and activities with a cultural, artistic and traditional content [RS1] .

Therefore, a cultural enterprise is an enterprise that produces and distributes goods and services that incorporate, ever since their development, a specific cultural characteristic, use or purpose, regardless of the their commercial value. Creative enterprises are instead those that have a cultural dimension and utilize culture as their input, even though their outputs are mainly functional.

Area Science Park supports the socioeconomic development of enterprise concepts and projects created in strategic sectors with a high economic growth rate, fostering the enterprise creation and acceleration and supporting the innovation of traditional enterprises.

We promote new investments, identify development and innovation opportunities, strengthen collaboration between research, business and culture, and experiment on the job specific best practices, tools and methodologies to steer businesses towards a national and international dimension.

Our aim is the creation of an ecosystem of innovation, in which Public Administrations, research centers, enterprises, associations and self-employed professionals can work in synergy, benefiting from the value created by the cooperation among traditional economic systems and cultural and creative systems.

Our solutions to support the cultural and creative enterprises are:

  • Enterprise pre-incubation and incubation

Support services, tutoring, technical and management assistance to develop the project idea of start-ups, project teams, self-employed professionals and associations;

  • Enterprise acceleration and consolidation

High-value post-incubation services, fostering the development of the entrepreneurial idea and generating opportunities to get into contact with financial partners, venture capital and investment funds;

  • Management of national and international projects

Coordination, facilitation, project and process management in national and European projects, in collaboration with the Public Administrations, research centers, public and private, national and international partners;

  • Development and application of methodologies:

Definition of work methodologies and tools, valorization of specialist skills, research findings and related technological transfer. The purpose is the development of robust and scalable methodologies on the subject of culture and creativity within the entrepreneurial world, disseminating knowledge and fostering interconnection between the various stakeholders, to realize process and product innovation;

  • Definition and application of public policy-making

Support to the definition and implementation of public policy-making for the benefit of the business culture and development of the economic fabric of the cultural and creative segment;

  • Education

Strategic lever for competitiveness in the market of cultural and creative enterprises, which strongly rely on the skills and knowledge of the human resources, through coaching and technical and management support.

In fact, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region has appointed Area Science Park coordinator of the network of certified regional incubators to foster the creation and development of new entrepreneurial initiatives in the sector of Cultural and Creative and tourist enterprises. By the same token, we consolidate and accelerate the development pathways of the enterprises already active in the region.

Therefore, we support the technological and market development of the Cultural and Creative Enterprises and improve their competitiveness, fostering their growth in terms of turnover, employment and profitability.

We do so to help the Cultural and Creative Enterprises to thrive in their local environment, intended as a launching pad to a stronger presence at an international level, and to provide qualified support, expertise and services necessary for the development and (technological and market) validation of their products and services. Moreover, the Cultural and Creative Enterprises segment is strategic for the development of the entire economic system.

We strongly believe in the value of hybridization among cultural players, cultural and creative enterprises and the world of the businesses belonging to the “traditional” production sectors.

The potential advantages deriving from the implementation of business models based on the collaboration between small and medium enterprises and Cultural and Creative Enterprises affect both segments; exchange and mixture of skills, sharing and reduced market uncertainty and related costs, improved creativity and time to market, increased flexibility, improved product portfolio and better access to distribution channels.

In this context, Area Science Park partners up with the Diva project “Development of ecosystems and value chains of innovation: supporting cross-border innovation through Creative Enterprises”, and is active within the context of the Italy-Slovenia Interreg V-A cross-border program 2014-2020.