Project management European Creative Industries Alliance – Policy Learning Platform – Creativity Component
Call for Tender for a ”Creative Agency” to assist in composing the final report of
ECIA - PLP
September 2013
Consortium Coordinator: AIM
Visiting address:
De Ruyterkade 5
1013 AA Amsterdam
Postal address:
Postbus 2852
1000 CW Amsterdam
1 Introduction
1.1 Overview of European Creative Industries Alliance
1.2 The role, contribution and objectives of the Policy Learning Platform
2 Description of Work
2.1 Deliverables
2.2 Schedule
2.3 Interaction with coordinator AIM
2.4 The eligibility criteria
1 Introduction
1.1 Overview of European Creative IndustriesAlliance
Europe’s Horizon 2020 strategy is focused on stimulating and optimizing Europe’s economy as well as the wellbeing of its citizens not only now, but also in the future. Considering this major task that the EU has set for itself, Europe is constantly on the lookout for new opportunities and industries that can contribute to reaching its future goals. Since most of this future depends on how effectively businesses innovate in the face of major challenges, it comes as no surprise that Europe decided to have a closer and innovative look into the creative industries.
The creative and cultural industries (cci’s) represent highly innovative companies with a great economic potential and are one of Europe’s most dynamic sectors, contributing around 3% to the EU GDP, with a high growth potential, and providing quality jobs to around 6.7 million people across the EU. What makes the cci’s particularly interesting is that their innovative and wealth creating abilities do not stop at the boundaries of their own sector, but seem to spill-over to other, more traditional, industries. Beyond their direct contribution to GDP, the creative industries are also important drivers of economic and social innovation in many other sectors including Tourism. Through these economic spill-over effects creative industries may have a similar transversal role for innovation in the economy to that of ICT. In addition, cultural and creative contents play a crucial role in the deployment of the information society, putting value to investments in broadband infrastructures and services, in digital technologies as well as in new consumer electronics and telecommunication.
Considering the potential the creative industries have to offer to Europe’s economy, the European Creative Industries Alliance (ECIA) was established in 2012 as a part of the “Innovation Union” flagship and the “Industrial Policy” flagship initiatives. It is one of the first concrete measures at European level promoting creative industries and the wider use of creativity by other industries. ECIA’s task is to strengthen the role of the creative industries as a catalyst for innovation and structural change and to identify how the innovative power of the cultural and creative industries can be supported via new policy instruments. In doing so, it builds on earlier work and relevant studies, such as the Commission Communication “Green Paper on Creative Industries” , the experience and results of actions under Europe INNOVA and PRO INNO Europe®, in particular, the current public-private partnerships under the European Knowledge Intensive Services Innovation Platform and the EPISIS INNO-Net. Furthermore, it follows up recommendations from the Expert Panel on Service Innovation. It also builds upon the results of studies and working groups in this field launched by DG Education and Culture.
ECIA focuses on promoting the more effective use of all different forms of knowledge and creativity for innovation throughout the economy and on supporting the emergence of new industries that combine knowledge and creativity with modern technologies, in particular ICT for innovation. Moreover, the Alliance took into account the fundamental changes taking place in the nature of innovation: no longer viewed as purely technological, but rather how firms exploit new technologies, not only to develop new products and services, but also new channels to market, new business processes, new organisational structures and new business models. As a result, markets are evolving, new strategic partnerships developing and old-fashioned concepts, such as the distinction between the manufacturing and service sectors, are being blurred, if not overturned.
This situation calls for new and even innovative policy instruments. This Alliance is not after discovering the best-practices in Europe. For ECIA best-practices are the starting point. By learning from yet established instruments that are rated as best-practices, and testing those via its concrete actions, its goal is adapting those best-practices and eventually changing them into next-practices. Those next-practices should eventually be taken up in a roadmap to provide practical solutions for policy makers that will contribute to Europe’s 2020 strategy.
1.2 The role, contribution and objectives of the Policy Learning Platform
The European Creative Industries Alliance, hereafter called ECIA, is an integrated policy initiative that combines policy learning with 8 concrete actions on innovation vouchers, better access to finance and cluster excellence & cooperation.
ECIA is designed as a cross-sectoral policy initiative that will promote service innovation and contribute to the modernization of the European economy in general and to the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy. ECIA’s task is to strengthen the role of the creative industries as a catalyst for innovation and structural change and to identify how the innovative power of the cultural and creative industries can be supported via new policy instruments.
It is an open platform that brings together policy-makers and business support practitioners from 28 partner organizations and 12 countries,supporting the creative industries to mobilise additional public and private funding of €100 Mio in support of creative industries.
The aim of ECIA is to foster service innovation in the creative industries and to facilitate the spill-over effects into other sectors. To this end, ECIA will analyse, benchmark and engage in mutual learning in areas such as:
•innovation support;
•incubation and access to finance;
•cluster excellence and co-operation;
ECIA will prepare policy recommendations with concrete master plans for implementation on how to better support creative industries.This will form the basis for a full roll-out of large-scale actions through regional, national and European programmes in support of creativeindustries in Europe with a view to facilitating the development of world-class creative industries clusters that can reinforce the innovation potential of regions in Europe.
In line with the challenges set out in the Commission Staff Working Document “Challenges to EU support to innovation in services” and the Commission Green Paper “Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries” the specific goals of the Alliance are:
•To establish a policy dialogue at European level to design better policies and make more strategic use of current and planned initiatives in support of creative industries SMEs at local, regional, national and European level;
•To mobilise more and/or better support for the further development of innovative SMEs in the creative industries;
•To showcase the relevance and impact of a broad concept of innovation that combines the use of IT and other enabling technologies with service innovation (demand-driven and user-centred approaches);
•To design and test better instruments to support innovative creative industries SMEs and their interaction with other sectors;
•To strengthen the role of the creative industries as a catalyst for innovation and structural change throughout the economy;
•To inform SMEs about relevant existing and new policies and measures.
Figure 2: ECIA Project Structure and Working Packages
Within the consortium 6 themes were selected to further develop. The themes are evenly distributed amongst the partners:
- Innovation vouchers, Milan - WP2;
- Cluster Excellence, Berlin - WP3;
- Access to Finance, Catalonia – WP4;
- Demand Driven Innovation, Tampere – WP5;
- Internationalisation, Nantes- WP6;
- Links with other sectors, Nantes- WP6.
2. Description of Work
The creative agency as subcontractor to AIM will support the management of the project with
regard to the policy recommendations of the Policy Learning Platform (PLP). The creative agencyassists the coordinator to determine the form, structure and formulation of the final report with the main results andoutcomes of the work of the ECIA PLP initiative. This has to improve the policyrecommendations and thus the policy learning procedures between the regions by carrying out thefollowing tasks:
-Conceptualise the structure and content of the final report;
-Outline and assist in formulation of the policy recommendations regarding the final report;
-Position the policy recommendations in the context of the current EU, national and regional policies for cci’s.
At the moment a midterm report is in the final phase; this has to be elaboratedinto a final report based on the recommendations of the working package leaders, the concrete actions and the proposals of the PLP. The agency will be supported by a writing group composed of the coordinator, the chair, 1 or 2 PLP members and an EU staff member.
2.1 Deliverables
A final report of ECIA with policy recommendations to unlock the potential of the creative industries on EU, national and regional level. The final report has to be printed ready in June 2014. Subsequently a dissemination phase will start,which could lead to possible adaptations of the final report. The final report will be printed ultimately in November/December 2014.
2.2 Schedule
The total duration of the Policy Learning Platform contract has been set to max. 15 months, which means itwill end in December 2014. The work carried out by the creative agency supportsthe work of the PLPand will be done in close cooperationwith the coordinatorand should start as soon as possible, not later than October 2013. It will end in December 2014.
2.3 Interaction with coordinator AIM
The creative agency shall appoint one person to be the single point of contact towards AIM.
The creative agency should report to AIM whenever requested. Any deviations from the workplan should be communicated to AIM as soon as possible.
AIM provides assistance in the following areas:
-Secure the involvement of the ECIA PLP experts and work package leaders as final deliverers
to the coordinator, AIM;
-Access and exchange of information and documents;
-Smooth interaction and clarifications about work to be done by other subcontractors.
2.4 The eligibility criteria
This Call for Expression of Interest for a „Creative Agency” is open to any type of organization
capable of providing the deliverables as described above. Moreover the organization should have
sufficient experience in communication and innovation management at international level as well as
experience in co-operation with regions and cities at international level as well as in collaborating with
bodies like the European Commission.
The amount of budget available for the above described tasks is limited to 20.000 EUR (VAT is included in this amount), currently planned over the coming 15 months starting from October2013 - this period might be extended, the budget will not be extended - for one to be selectedsubcontractor.
Travels and virtual meetings as well as prove of work hours in timesheets are to be included in the
subcontractor’s invoices. Travel costs will be reimbursed in accordance to the rules within the project.The final quotations will be the sum of the evaluation of the listed three criteria below. Each wellreceived proposal will be confirmed by email. Results of the evaluation process, a ranking of bids andthe start of the negotiations will be announced within two weeks after the closure deadline for the
tender.
-Criterion 1: Size (budget) and number of successfully completed policy supporting actions with policymakers on an international level including road mapping and master plan procedures;
-Criterion 2: Quality and quantity of projects done in collaboration with international organisations tosupport regional innovation strategies;
-Criterion 3: Highlight impacts and traces your agency made in the in the creative industries landscape in Europe.
The number of pages of the bid to be submitted should not exceed five pages. Bids should be
submitted by email, in English language, which is the working language of the project, and in pdfformatto with a copy . Exchange of information likee.g. questions and answers, confirmations of receipt, etc. are to be done via email, only.
The deadline for submitting the tender documents is set to Friday, 4 October 2013, 17:00 hrs.