January 2021
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK
2014 - 2020
Contents
1. Introduction...... 1 2. The impact survey ...... 5 3. The creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors in the UK...... 7 4. Creative Europe in the UK...... 11 5. Routes to impact for Creative Europe ...... 19 6. Impact on networks, partnerships and internationalisation...... 28 7. Impact on creativity, innovation, research and development ...... 40 8. Financial and economic impact ...... 46 9. Impact on knowledge, skills and capacity ...... 57 10. Impact on audiences and cultural development ...... 65 11. Social impacts ...... 72 12. Looking ahead...... 76
Survey analysis and results ...... A-1 Research methods ...... B-1 Partner countries...... C-1 Bibliography ...... D-1
Contact: Approved by: Luke Williams Dr Jo Hutchinson Tel: 0161 475 2110 Associate Director email: [email protected] Date: 07/12/2020
Disclaimer This report takes into account the particular instructions and requirements of our client. It is not intended for, and should not be relied upon by, any third party and no responsibility is undertaken to any third party. Whilst SQW has used reasonable care and skill throughout, it is unable to warrant either the accuracy or completeness of information supplied by the client or third parties, and it does not accept responsibility for any legal, commercial or other consequences that arise from its use.
Cover photo: Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 1
1. Introduction
About Creative Europe
1.1 Creative Europe1 is the European Union's programme to support the cultural, creative and audiovisual sectors. Launched in January 2014, Creative Europe brings together a Culture sub-programme, which provides funding for the cultural and creative sectors, a MEDIA sub- programme, which invests in film, television, new media and video games, and a cross-sector strand which explores the common ground between the two sectors.
1.2 Creative Europe Desk UK (CED UK) is a partnership between The British Council, British Film Institute, Arts Council England, Creative Scotland and Welsh Government. It is designated and supported by the UK Government Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) and the European Commission2. It promotes awareness and understanding of Creative Europe and provides free advice and support for applicants from the UK. Creative Europe Desk UK’s team of specialists is based across the UK (in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast).
Reporting its impact
1.3 As the UK reorients itself following its exit from the European Union, the opportunity to reflect on the effect that Creative Europe has had on the creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors across the four nations is timely. This report presents evidence of the impact of Creative Europe between 2014 and 2019 and its two sub-programmes MEDIA and Culture, in the UK. There have been several investigations and summaries of the impact of Creative Europe both across Europe and in the UK:
In 2018, CED UK commissioned a piece of research exploring the Impact of Creative Europe in the UK
In 2018 the European Commission published a mid-term evaluation of the Creative Europe programme
Annual monitoring reports and project monitoring information are published by the European Commission
Creative Europe Desk UK maintains a comprehensive website with information about funded projects, monitoring reports and applicant information.
1.4 This report was commissioned to consider the evidence and strength of evidence base of the impact of Creative Europe from 2014 until 2019 and in particular its two sub-programmes
1 https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/ 2 https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/node_en
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MEDIA and Culture, in the UK, according to the headings and sub-headings defined in the Evaluation Framework in Table 1-1. Table 1-1: Impact Framework Impact heading Impact areas Networks, partnerships and Involvement in international networks and internationalisation partnerships which increase the influence of UK practitioners Increased understanding of professional practice and working context in other countries International mobility and exchange, and reaching international markets Raising the profile of UK’s cultural and creative industries and supporting cultural relations Creativity, innovation, research and The creation of new content and IP along with development the commissioning of new work and establishing new artistic collaborations The development of new business models, experimentation and the piloting of new approaches Responding to change, including the digital shift, interdisciplinarity and cross-sectoral working Knowledge exchange, research and evaluation within the sector along with culture’s contribution to research and development generally Financial and economic impact Increase in output Increase in the availability of permanent and temporary employment Increased investment from a variety of sources Knowledge, skills and capacity within the The development of cultural professionals’ workforce knowledge, skills and networks Improving employability of professionals across the sector Stimulating capacity and professional know- how through co-production and collaboration Strengthening organisational capacity, including cultural governance and leadership The development of technical infrastructure and administrative processes. Audience development (access to audiences Expanding audiences for international work in and benefits for audiences) and cultural the UK and for UK work abroad impact Deepening audience engagement through educational and outreach initiatives Improving the quality of cultural activities and outputs, and leading and influencing developments in practice. Learning from best practice elsewhere
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Showcasing of UK work along with increasing international visibility and promotion Social impact Creating professional opportunities and pathways for young people and people from under-represented or marginalised groups Connecting international artists and culture with local communities, and promoting understanding of other cultures Supporting social integration and tackling inequality through cultural activity Stimulating the cultural and creative vibrancy of locales. Source: Adapted from CED-UK (2018) The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK
1.5 Evidence to inform the updated assessment is derived from four sources:
Context is provided by the European Commission’s monitoring and evaluation reports. An annual monitoring report provides an update on the implementation of the fund with examples of impactful funded activities. The European Commission3 has also undertaken a mid-term evaluative assessment of its processes and effects.
Project-level information held by Creative Europe Desk UK, based on the Commission’s beneficiary information. This is supplemented with insight and information about project development and delivery from the team’s communications and broader networking activities. Information on each Creative Europe project with UK involvement is available on the Creative Europe Desk website. This provided evidence presented in this report on the scale of engagement.
Impact assessment comes from survey responses. A survey of lead beneficiaries of UK Creative Europe funded projects from 2014 to 2019 undertaken during the summer of 2020. This was distributed to 229 potential respondents from the Culture sub- programme including artists who participated in the pilot mobility scheme i-Portunus and 453 UK participants in the MEDIA sub-programme including those who were participants of MEDIA training. This achieved a response rate of 25% which is sufficient to provide a good indication of range and scale of impact. Responses were affected by timing as the survey was live when many people were on furlough due to COVID-194.
Interview evidence from stakeholders and survey respondents. 20 stakeholders were interviewed in the early stages of the process and in addition, the survey generated qualitative insights through inclusion of some open text questions with additional qualitative insights from subsequent emails or interviews with 17 respondents. The
3 https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/evaluations_en 4 The ‘Business Impact of Coronavirus Survey found 70% of employees in the Arts, Entertainment and Recreation sectors were furloughed during June 2020. https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/articles/comparison offurloughedjobsdata/maytojuly2020
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creation and conduct of an impact survey of UK beneficiaries and trainees who have participated in Creative Europe since 2014 (see Annex A) and conducted in August 2020, with follow up email and discussions for data clarification or examples of impact.
1.6 Further detail about the data used in this report is provided in Annex B.
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2. The impact survey
2.1 Evidence to underpin the impact of assessment was based on a survey of organisations and individuals that have participated in Creative Europe at any point since 2014. This section provides information about the survey design, distribution, response and analysis.
Survey design
2.2 The impact survey consisted of two separate surveys that were designed in parallel – one for MEDIA sub-programme and one for Culture sub-programme beneficiaries. The two surveys followed the same structure, consisting of five sections as described in Table 2-1. The survey routed respondents through the survey dependent upon which Creative Europe schemes they had engaged with – this was used at times to avoid presenting questions on impact to respondents that were not expected to have relevant experience.
Table 2-1: Survey structure and differentiation for Culture and MEDIA Question area Differences between Culture and MEDIA questions 1 Characteristics of the respondent and Tailored to reflect different characteristics of the their organisation beneficiaries of the two programmes 2 The extent of respondent engagement Phrased to be programme specific with Creative Europe 3 Scheme-specific questions Phrased to be scheme specific 4 Impact questions that corresponded to Same questions but with different tailored the Impact Framework examples or response categories 5 Questions on the role of the Creative No differences Europe Desk UK Source: SQW
2.3 The surveys were designed to enable impact to be reported in aggregate and thus communicate the impact of the Creative Europe programme as a whole. Where there were notable differences between the surveys or a subset of respondents were not asked a particular question, this is identified and noted throughout this report. The data is consistently presented with a breakdown for MEDIA and Culture sub-programmes to enable insight into the differences between the programmes.
Survey distribution & response rate
2.4 The survey was distributed to 682 potential respondents – 229 for Culture and 453 for MEDIA sub programmes between 22nd July and 14th August, 2020. The survey was distributed via Creative Europe Desk UK to individuals and organisations on their mailing list. Up to three reminders and follow up emails and telephone were made to encourage survey completion.
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2.5 It focused predominantly on two categories of beneficiaries: those who had been involved in funded projects (core beneficiaries) and people who had attended training or events funded through the MEDIA sub-programme. For core beneficiaries, the invitee list had reasonably comprehensive coverage of funded projects. The survey was sent to individuals associated with each funded project, and some individuals will have been invited to respond on behalf of multiple projects. The survey also covered i-Portunus5 and Europa Cinema6 beneficiaries. The survey was not distributed to other stakeholders, non-UK beneficiaries or audiences.
2.6 Both surveys received 170 useable responses, consisting of 139 full responses and 31 useable partial responses where respondents had completed some impact questions but not the entire survey (Table 2-2).
2.7 This achieved a response rate of 25% which is sufficient to provide a good indication of range and scale of impact. Responses were affected by timing as the survey was live when many people were on furlough due to COVID-197. For Culture, the response rate was 31% and for MEDIA sub-programme it was 22%. It should be noted that core beneficiaries will have had a greater depth of engagement with the aims, ambitions and characteristics of Creative Europe (and a higher response rate) than training/event attendees. Considering core beneficiaries only, MEDIA sub-programme had a good response rate of 47%.
Table 2-2: Response rate by respondent type Distributed to Completed Useable partials % Response Culture 229 26% 5% 31% Core beneficiaries 214 25% 5% 30% i-Portunus 15 33% 7% 40% MEDIA 453 18% 4% 22% Core beneficiaries 132 40% 7% 47% Europa Cinemas 38 11% 3% 13% Training/event attendees 282 9% 2% 11% Total 682 20% 5% 25%
2.8 Data from survey respondents is provided throughout this report. In most cases, the results to survey responses are presented for both Culture and MEDIA sub-programmes alongside the total response for Creative Europe. Where respondents were not shown a question, or were shown a question but chose not to answer (partial responses) these are not included in the denominator used to calculate percentage response. Detailed responses to some questions alongside answers to scheme specific questions are included in the report Annex A.
5 I-Portunus: https://www.i-portunus.eu/about-the-programme/general-information/ 6 Europa Cinemas: https://www.europa-cinemas.org/en 7 The Business Impact of Coronavirus Survey found 70% of employees in the Arts, Entertainment and Recreation sectors were furloughed during June 2020.
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3. The creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors in the UK
Sector characteristics
3.1 The creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors contribute to the country’s economy and quality of life in a variety of different ways. A thriving creative and artistic community provides opportunities for creative experiences that enrich people’s lives by providing entertainment, opportunities to participate and to learn about ourselves and others.
3.2 They can also be seen as industries that provide jobs and create economic value.
DCMS data shows that in 2019 the number of jobs in the Creative Industries sector stood at just over 2.1 million. The number of jobs in the Creative Industries increased by 34.5% from 2011: more than three times the growth rate of employment in the UK overall (11.4%). In 2019, the Cultural Sector had 676,000 jobs. Since 2011, the number of jobs in the Cultural Sector has grown by 24.0%8.
The size of the creative and cultural sectors in the EU is estimated to be 4% of EU GDP9. The Creative and Cultural Sectors also make a substantial contribution to the UK economy measured in Gross Value Added (GVA). In 2018 (the most recent data available) the Creative Industries contributed £111.7bn to the UK economy, an increase of 43.2% in real terms since 201010. Meanwhile the Cultural Sector contributed £32.3bn in 2018, an increase of 21.9% in real terms.
Exports in the two DCMS sectors; Creative Industries and Cultural Sectors in 2019 amounted to £20.1bn and £17.4bn respectively. Exports from these sub-sectors have been growing rapidly showing an increase of 50% from 2018 for the Creative Industries and 63% from 2018 for Cultural11.
It has been estimated that music, combined arts, literature, theatre, visual arts and dance together have an annual turnover in the UK of £17 billion, generating £8.6 billion in Gross Value Added, and employing over 137,000 people12.
8 DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates 2019: Employment. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dcms-sectors-economic-estimates-2019- employment/dcms-sectors-economic-estimates-2019-employment 9 Creative Europe Monitoring Report (2019) 10 DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates 2018 (provisional): Gross Value Added https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dcms-sectors-economic-estimates-2018-gva 11 DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates 2019: Trade https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dcms-economic-estimates-2019-trade-report 12 Centre for Economics and Business Research (2019) Contribution of the arts and culture industry to the national economy. London. CEBR.
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the core UK film industry contributes over £4.6 billion to UK GDP and supports over 117,00 jobs13, taking into account direct and indirect employment, meanwhile the independent TV production industry is worth about £3billion a year in revenue14.
3.3 But the creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors offer more than economic value. Thriving creative and artistic communities provide opportunities for experiences that enrich people’s lives by providing cultural experiences, entertainment, inspiration and opportunities to participate and to learn about ourselves and others. The sectors trigger ‘a positive impact in other sectors of society, such as education, innovation or healthcare’, and help to ‘connect people across borders through powerful human stories and narratives’15. Alongside education they are the basis of the UK’s ‘soft power’16, and help demonstrate the UK’s values of openness, inclusion, transparency and fairness: “British art, film, music, and sport continue to hold enormous global appeal – from Ed Sheeran to Harry Potter and the Premier League – and tourism continues to flourish with its abundance of museums, galleries, and theatres”17.
3.4 Recent research for the Arts Council England18 notes the difficulties associated with valuing such a diverse sector, but concludes that its strengths lie in the ‘essentially collaborative’ nature of the sectors which enables people working in the sector to connect across the creative sectors into commercial activity, education and the wider business community.
International opportunities Perceptions of a 3.5 UK creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors make a valuable economic country have real-world contribution to the trade balance through consequences: being exports of products and live performance. liked increases the 3.6 The creative process itself however probability of someone provides a powerful medium for sharing values, creating dialogue and building choosing to visit, study in mutual appreciation of different people and and do business/trade communities across state boundaries20. with a country The idea that culture is an important component in creating global influence and Sir Ciarán Devane, Chief
status, through the creation of soft power, is Executive of the British Council19 significant for the activities of Creative
13 Oxford Economic (2012) The Economic Impact of the UK Film Industry 14 Pact UK Television Census (2019) 15 European Commission (2020) Creative Europe Monitoring Report 2019. 16 https://softpower30.com/country/united-kingdom/ 17 Softpower 30 (2019) : https://softpower30.com/country/united-kingdom/ 18 Metro Dynamics (2020) The Impact of Arts & Culture on the wider Creative Economy. Arts Council England. 19 MacDonald, (2019) Sources of soft power. British Council 20 University of Edinburgh (undated) Soft Power Today – Measuring the Influences and Effects. Edinburgh. British Council.
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Europe. Soft power is about ‘standing out’21 and being associated with a set of values and associations that encourage nations, traders and individuals to create alliances, commercial exchanges and friendships between countries.
3.7 Creative Europe has helped to foster actions that build social cohesion. Creative endeavours can bring diverse people together to challenge and explore ideas and assumptions and connect people across boundaries to create stronger and more cohesive societies. A European Union Working Group report emphasised the importance of cross-cultural working to become relevant 22.
3.8 What is true of the UK’s relationships with Europe and the rest of the world is also true of relationships between communities in the four UK nations. Stakeholders interviewed for this study stated that one of the strengths of Creative Europe had been the opportunities that it had created for policy makers from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to come together. This created new dialogue and understanding and ensured that locally significant issues were not diluted in exchanges with Europe and in important decisions.
Barriers to market participation
3.9 The creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors face many challenges. These include responding to opportunities in creative technology, the need to ensure diversity and equal opportunity across the sector, environmental challenges, shrinking public funds, and the need to refresh skills in creative practice and skills in non-creative areas. Such challenges frame the activities supported through Creative Europe with its specific focus on supporting the sector to operate in transnational and international markets.
3.10 The sector in the UK features some internationally significant companies that commission, produce, tour and broadcast across the world. But it is dominated by relatively small companies and collaboratives who bring ideas and creative talent but who face a number of different barriers to reaching audiences in different countries. These barriers include23:
Networks: bringing creative works to different audiences requires a number of different connections to be made between artists, financiers, producers, technicians, distributors, advertisers and promoters. Building networks of trusted people across all these sectors who also work across different countries is essential for bringing product to audiences.
Finance: creativity is associated with risk taking whereas financial investors can be somewhat risk averse. This creates a financing gap which is where finance is needed to convert a concept to a pilot, or a test with a smaller audience. SMEs in the cultural and creative sectors are particularly vulnerable to financing shortages due to the intangible
21 Kings College London (2017) The art of soft power. London. KCL. 22 European Union (2014) Report on the role of public arts and cultural institutions in the promotion of cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue 2011-2014. European Union. 23 For a summary of the rationale for the programme see the Regulation that established Creative Europe (2014-2020) European Commission (2013) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?qid=1408546810627&uri=CELEX:32013R1295
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nature of many of their assets, the prototype profile of their activities, and their intrinsic need to take risks and experiment in order to innovate.
Digital shift: while digital creates difficulties for aspects of the sectors’ operations (such as fair remuneration for artists) it also creates a set of new opportunities based on lower distribution costs, increased accessibility and higher audience numbers. To benefit, creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors need greater access to finance to upgrade equipment, develop new skills and adapt business models.
Language: Cultural and creative sectors are culturally rich and highly independent and can provide a voice for their cultural traditions. This diversity creates richness but also gives rise to a series of obstacles that hinder international market development creative works that depend on language for example, require translation into different languages, or audiences that are comfortable with viewing productions with sub-titles.
Cultural translation: just as there are language barriers to international exchange there are also cultural barriers associated with different aesthetics and styles. These enrich the audience experience but need careful acknowledgement and treatment during the production process and in marketing before they reach an audience.
3.11 The challenge and barriers impact upon different sectors in different ways. For example, the dominance of Hollywood in English language film provides a difficult financing and distribution environment for subtitled films. Meanwhile cultural and language barriers and other costs associated with travel and subsistence for artists seeking to promote their work in a different country or to stage or tour it internationally can be prohibitive.
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4. Creative Europe in the UK
Between 2014-2019 Creative Europe has supported 609 projects involving UK beneficiaries. These received a total of €203m from the programme, of which €68m is known to have gone directly to 373 UK companies and organisations. In the same period UK films benefited from a further €32.1m received by 240 film distributors across Europe to distribute 196 UK films. This brings the total value of support to the UK’s creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors in this period to over €100m. Creative Europe Desk UK monitoring data
European support for the UK creative sector
4.1 Creative Europe is the primary source of funding for organisations in the creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors to participate in European market development activities. But it is not the only source of EU support. Recent work for the Arts Council England24 calculated that programmes including Horizon 2020, Interreg (part of European Structural & Investment Funds), Erasmus+ and Creative Europe together amount to £40million per year. This funding has been of specific benefit to the arts, museums & creative industries in England, and to inward investment into English research institutions (especially universities) who have a focus on related areas. The UK screen sector has benefited from over £298million in EU funding over the period 2007 to 2017 of which £120.3million was invested through Creative Europe25.
Aims and objectives of Creative Europe
4.2 Launched in January 2014, Creative Europe brings together a Culture sub-programme, which provides funding for the cultural and creative sectors, a MEDIA sub-programme, which invests in film, television, new media and video games, and a cross-sector strand which explores the common ground between the two sectors.
24 Euclid (2017) EU Support 2007 - 2016. Arts Council England. 25 BFI (2018) The screen sector after Brexit: the value of EU funding and the future of investment.
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4.3 Set up under a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council in December 2013, the programme’s two overarching general objectives are26:
To safeguard and promote cultural and linguistic diversity and Europe’s cultural heritage
To strengthen the competitiveness of the European cultural and creative sectors.
4.4 The programme has four specific objectives27:
Supporting the capacity of the cultural and creative sectors to operate transnationally
Promoting the transnational circulation and mobility of cultural and creative works and artists to reach new audiences
Strengthening the financial capacity of cultural and creative SMEs and organisations
Supporting transnational policy co-operation to foster policy development, innovation, creativity, audience development and new business models.
4.5 The programme is structured into three sub-programmes; 1) The MEDIA sub-programme supporting the audiovisual sector, 2) the Culture sub-programme supporting the cultural, arts and heritage sectors and 3) the cross-sector strand supporting the Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee Facility, cross-sectoral activities, transnational co-operation, and the Creative Europe Desks28. This report focusses on the objectives of the Culture and MEDIA sub- programmes (Table 4-1).
Table 4-1: Actions of the Culture and MEDIA sub-programmes Creative Europe: Culture29 Creative Europe: MEDIA30 The Culture sub-programme helps cultural and The MEDIA sub-programme of Creative Europe creative organisations to operate supports the EU film and audiovisual industries transnationally and promotes the cross-border financially in the development, distribution and circulation of works of culture and the mobility promotion of their work. of cultural players. It helps to launch projects with a European It provides financial support to projects with a dimension and nurtures new technologies; it European dimension aiming to share cultural enables European films and audiovisual works content across borders. including feature films, television drama, Funding opportunities cover a diverse range of documentaries and new media to find markets schemes: Cooperation projects, Literary beyond national and European borders; it funds Translation, Networks or Platforms. The training and film development schemes. supported activities aim to enable cultural and creative players to work internationally
26 European Commission (2013) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?qid=1408546810627&uri=CELEX:32013R1295 Article 3. 27 European Commission (2013) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?qid=1408546810627&uri=CELEX:32013R1295 Article 4 28 European Commission (2013) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?qid=1408546810627&uri=CELEX:32013R1295 29 https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/home/programmes-and-actions/culture_en 30 https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe/actions/media_en
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The Culture sub-programme
4.6 The Culture sub-programme offers different types of funding mechanisms to support multi- country partnership working and exchange.
Cooperation Projects
4.7 Cooperation Projects is the Culture sub-programme’s main funding opportunity and around 70% of the budget is allocated through it. This scheme supports cross-border, collaborative projects involving at least three different participating countries, and lasting up to four years. Cooperation Projects enable creative, cultural and heritage organisations working across any art form, such as visual arts, dance, theatre, literature, performance, music, heritage, architecture, design, circus, festivals, craft and fashion, to form a European partnership to run jointly developed cross-border projects and activities. These organisations can include higher education institutions, local authorities, social enterprises, charities and companies operating in the cultural and creative sectors.
4.8 The list of successful Cooperation Projects is extremely diverse, including such focuses as putting artists with disabilities centre-stage in Europe; boosting the careers of women innovators in music; unlocking new possibilities of augmented reality in heritage sites; opening the doors and programmes of cultural institutions to young people; and provoking thought and action to the climate crisis among communities and policy-makers.
4.9 At the heart of Cooperation Projects are strong partnerships between cultural organisations in different countries. These partnerships are designed to be long-term and sustainable and to live on past the end of specific funded projects31.
4.10 Small Cooperation Projects involve at least three partners from three of the countries participating in Creative Europe. Partnerships can apply for up to €200,000 for projects that last up to four years. Large Cooperation Projects involve at least six partners from six participating countries. Partnerships can apply for up to €2 million for projects that last up to four years.
European platforms
4.11 European Platforms support European cultural, creative or heritage organisations to work together to promote new and emerging talent through co-development, co-production and programming. They make a commitment to present European-produced content and to provide visibility and mobility of new talent.
4.12 There have been 17 different platforms funded in total since 2014 and the UK has provided the coordinating partners for two of those:
31 See: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe/actions/culture/cooperation-projects_en
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Aerowaves is a hub for dance discovery that identifies the most promising new work by emerging dance artists and promotes it through cross-border performances organised through its network of partners in 33 countries
Literary Europe Live supports the mobility and circulation of works by emerging European literary creators.
4.13 17 UK organisations have been involved as partners in non-UK led platforms. In addition, UK partners and artists have been selected to participate in platforms for example by providing commissions, undertaking residencies, and exchanges. SHAPE platform has no official UK partner but 32 musicians/artists from the UK have been selected to participate on the programme since 2015. Similarly, European Talent Exchange Programme has no official UK partners but has nevertheless facilitated 159 UK bands/artists international festival performances since 2015.
European Networks
4.14 Networks encourage professional exchange and capacity building within the sector by supporting existing European creative and cultural networks. Networks are experienced member-based structures bringing together operators and professionals. They advocate for their membership and are invited to contribute to EU policy. They also support mobility of artists and contribute to the transfer of skills and knowledge. There are 23 European Networks funded through Creative Europe in 2014 with an extension in 2017 including additional networks to make a total of 28. These represent more than 4,500 organisations from 92 countries. About €38 million was invested in Networks through Creative Europe between 2014 and 202032.
Literary translations
4.15 Creative Europe supports initiatives for the translation and promotion of literary works across EU markets, with the aim of increasing access to and readership of high quality European literature. Publishers or publishing houses could apply for support with costs associated with translation and publication of a package of works of fiction from and into eligible European languages and subsequent promotion of that package of works.
The MEDIA sub-programme
4.16 The MEDIA sub-programme has been used to fund a range of activities from quality production through to distribution and audience development. Each of the strands of the programme are listed in Table 4-2 alongside an indication of the types of measure that were supported.
32 Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (2019) Creative Europe Networks. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/1e4ce5f2-8508-11ea-bf12- 01aa75ed71a1/language-en
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Table 4-2: Measures supported by MEDIA sub-programme strands33 Strand Supported measures Capacity building of audiovisual operators to develop European works, facilitate European and international co-productions including those Access to markets with television broadcasters. Encourage business-to-business exchanges by facilitating access to markets and innovative business tools to raise projects’ visibility.
Audience Development: Promoting film literacy and at increasing audiences' knowledge of, and interest in, European audiovisual works, focusing on young audiences film literacy & education in particular.
Distribution of non-national European films through theatrical Distribution and Sales Distribution on all other platforms. Agents Support for international sales activities; in particular the subtitling, dubbing and audio-description of audiovisual works. Activities helping European and international co-production partners International Co- to come together and/or production Providing indirect support for audiovisual works co-produced by international co-production funds.
Online Promotions of new distribution modes in order to foster the development of new business models. Development of European audiovisual works, in particular films and television works such as fiction, documentaries, children’s and Single project or Slate animated films, as well as interactive works such as videogames and multimedia with enhanced cross-border circulation potential. Support for European audiovisual production companies. Create and operate a network of cinemas with a view to encouraging Cinema Networks cinema owners and operators to screen a significant proportion of non- national European films. Support initiatives presenting and promoting a diversity of European Film festivals audiovisual works. Support activities aiming at increasing knowledge and interest of audiences in European audiovisual works. Support for the acquisition and improvement of skills and competences of audiovisual professionals and the development of Training networks including the use of digital technologies to ensure the adaptation to market development, testing new approaches to audience development and testing of new business models. Support for European audiovisual production companies, in particular TV programming independent production companies. Development of European audiovisual works in particular interactive Video games works such as video games and multimedia with enhanced cross- border circulation potential. Source: SQW
33 European Commission (2013) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?qid=1408546810627&uri=CELEX:32013R1295
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Other elements of Creative Europe
4.17 Creative Europe has allocated over €1.46 billion over seven years. Most of this is through the Culture and MEDIA sub-programmes but other elements include a series of Awards that recognise cultural excellence such as
European Capitals of Culture
European Heritage Days
European Heritage Label
EU Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards
EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Award
European Border Breakers Awards (music)
EU Prize for Literature
4.18 The i-Portunus call supporting creative mobility was a trial of a scheme to support short term cross-border mobility within Europe for artists active in the performing or visual arts. They were designed to provide funding to enable artists to achieve a specific and well-defined objective such as to develop an international collaboration or engage in a production-oriented residency34.
Creative Europe funding distribution
4.19 Since 2014 UK projects and organisations have benefited from Creative Europe with Culture sub-programme projects bringing over €27million to the UK and MEDIA sub-programme projects securing almost €40million (Table 4-3). The UK has also benefitted from funding received by European distributors to acquire and release UK films across Europe. In addition, European distributors have received €32.1m across 196 different films. This is equivalent to 18% of all funds awarded in this period to distributors and sales agents Europe-wide.
4.20 The impact of this funding has been felt across the UK with both Culture and MEDIA reaching the four countries (Figure 4-1). There has been a consistent effort to ensure that London- based projects do not dominate, and the distribution of Cooperation Project successes show that 70% of awards in England went to organisations outside of London in 2020 compared with 62% in 2019.
34 https://www.i-portunus.eu/about-the-programme/general-information/
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Table 4-3: Funding from Creative Europe accessed by UK companies (€’000) 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 TOTAL Culture 6,068 5,450 3,633 3,856 3,613 4,399 27,020 MEDIA 9,289 6,693 6,015 6,696 6,322 4,785 39,800 Source: Creative Europe Desk UK Monitoring data
Figure 4-1: Distribution of Creative Europe project beneficiaries 2014-2019
Source: Produced by SQW 2019. Licence 100030994. Based on beneficiary postcodes in European Commission, Creative Europe Project Results data
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 18
4.22 Creative Europe Desk UK calculated the total value of the direct support provided to projects between 2014 and 2019. Analysis revealed that MEDIA sub-programme beneficiaries in the UK were able to leverage match funding worth four times the amount of their Creative Europe grant. This amounted to over €157 million of funding in addition to the €37 million received as grants.
4.23 In addition, Creative Europe supports the release and distribution of UK films internationally. Outside of the UK, European distributors and sales agents invested over €107 million in the acquisition and release of UK films supported by the MEDIA sub-programme between 2014 and 2019, nearly 3.5 times more than the grant total of €32 million. This funding supported two types of activity:
€20.6 million worth of grants supported the release of UK films (i.e. print and advertising costs which go towards the marketing of the film’s cinema release), which leveraged match-funding of €54 million, more than twice the amount of the Creative Europe grant
€11.6 million worth of grants supported the acquisition of UK films (i.e. minimum guarantee costs which distributors pay to producers when they acquire the film as an advance of expected revenues) which leveraged match-funding worth €53 million – five times the amount of the Creative Europe grant.
Applicant support –Creative Europe Desk UK
4.24 Across Europe there is a network of Creative Europe Desks which are designed to:
provide information about and promote the Creative Europe programme in their country
assist the cultural and creative sectors in relation to the programme and provide basic information on other support opportunities
stimulate cross-border cooperation within the cultural and creative sectors, and
support the European Commission in ensuring proper communication and dissemination of the results and impacts of the programme.
4.25 In the UK these functions are delivered by the Creative Europe Desk UK which promotes Creative Europe and supports applicants. Creative Europe Desk UK is a partnership between the British Council, British Film Institute, Arts Council England, Creative Scotland and Welsh Government. It is designated and supported by the UK Government Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport and the European Commission. It promotes awareness and understanding of Creative Europe and provides free advice and support for applicants based in the UK. Creative Europe Desk UK’s team of specialists is based across the UK (in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast).
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 19
5. Routes to impact for Creative Europe
The Evaluation Framework
5.1 In 2018 Creative Europe Desk-UK created an evaluation framework to articulate the ways in which the programme contributes to its overall objectives of safeguarding, promoting cultural diversity and strengthening the competitiveness of the sectors. In the UK and in the context of the implications of Brexit for the sectors there is a specific concern to understand how the Programme has made organisations in the sector economically stronger, and what the consequences of withdrawal from Creative Europe might be in the future.
5.2 The evaluation framework developed by Creative Europe Desk UK was first reported in the interim impact report of Creative Europe in the UK.35 It had six key impact areas with sub- headings and descriptors of the types of impact that might be attributed to participation in Creative Europe. The six areas of impact were 1) economic impact, 2) internationalisation and network, 3) innovation, research and development, 4) skills and capacity, 5) audiences and cultural impact and 6) social impact. It was reported by stakeholders that this framework was very well received by the European Commission who saw the value in capturing information beyond Programme key performance indicators.
5.3 These types of impact connect with aspects of soft power. Portland’s annual Soft Power 30 Report36 scores countries based on a basket of indicators and a global survey. The areas covered by these indicators include equality, education, and digital connectivity and assess things like internationalisation of higher education, perceptions of esteem and reach of digital content. Measures of a country’s creative outputs for soft power have a strong overlap with those impact measures for Creative Europe. Consequently, in this report we do not report soft power impacts separately as they are embedded in the established evaluation framework.
Routes to impact
Networks, Partnership and Internationalisation
5.4 Creative Europe promotes network development and the creation of transnational partnerships and international market development. These are fundamentally important to ensure that creative outputs remain fresh, innovative and relevant to diverse international audiences and that they are accessible to such audiences.
35 Creative Europe Desk UK (2018) The impact of Creative Europe in the UK http://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/sites/default/files/CE_ImpactUK__FINAL.pdf Page 9. 36 See: https://softpower30.com/
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5.5 In ‘Mobility Matters’ ERICarts37 argued that mobility of artistic and creative professionals was essential both to the European ideal and to the health of the sector, and that any approach to cultural mobility needs to be balanced (to focus on both movement out and in to partner countries, to ensure that different regions benefit and that funding is distributed fairly),and productive by supporting exchanges that foster exploration and creative capacity.
5.6 Funding that supports mobility and the creation of networks was considered to be a longer- term investment in a process that needed time to generate positive outcomes. Stakeholders noted that the process may start with a short engagement such as attendance at a training session or conference that leads to encounters with other artists or producers that then develop in time into joint applications or idea development. The process of international network development can take several years.
5.7 The European Commission’s (2018) mid-term evaluation38 suggested that Creative Europe achieved this by facilitating subsequent transnational operations, as they reduce the costs of identifying, contacting and vetting partners which helps create a level playing field which is designed to take into account the needs of lower capacity countries. This generates commercial and creative collaborations that include partnering with IT/tech for knowledge sharing, sharing risks inherent with cross-border circulation and establishing production partnerships. In the case of MEDIA sub-programme it was said that Creative Europe has led to a structuring effect by creating an ecosystem at a European level where companies from across Europe can come together and collaborate.
Route to impact Networks, Attendance at events or participation in networks provide partnerships and opportunities to meet collaborators, both formally and internationalisati informally, from different countries and with different skill sets on Development of partnerships over time lead to trusted relationships and the creation of new ideas and new work Broader networks and partnerships create commercial advantage Profile raising at prestigious events can help to level the playing field Networks and partnerships create a collaborative ecosystem.
Creativity, innovation, research and development.
5.8 The rapid development of technologies in both production and consumption of creative and media products had led to an accelerated need for the acquisition of new skills and technologies and its incorporation in collaborative projects. One of the routes to impact is
37 European Institute for Comparative Cultural Research (2008) Mobility Matters: Programmes and Schemes to Support the Mobility of Artists and Cultural Professionals. European Commission (DG Education and Culture). 38 European Commission (2018) Mid-term evaluation of the Creative Europe programme (2014- 2020) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?qid=1525096559278&uri=COM:2018:248:FIN
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therefore to support the sector to understand new technologies and connections with HE partners help facilitate this. Indeed, the Creative Europe Desk UK (2018) interim evaluation reported that since 2014, 23 UK universities and four colleges have been partners in Cooperation Projects, which reflects how UK arts and heritage organisations have strengthened links with higher education39. The focus on knowledge exchange, learning and research in many projects has directly improved the work of UK organisations and developed R&D skills in their staff teams. With innovation written into the guidelines, MEDIA encourages applicants to experiment with new types of content (e.g. VR) or new ways of engaging with the audience.
5.9 Innovation can also apply to the adoption of new business models adapted to digitalisation and globalisation. A further related route to impact is that partners are given the ability to take creative risks, along with the preparation, time and development funds to improve the quality of scripts, productions or other creative products.
Route to impact Creativity, innovation, Stronger connections with HE partners provides improved research and knowledge and skills amongst professionals, particularly development technical, research and development skills and support for use of digital technologies Projects offer the space and resources to develop higher quality and/or novel creative products and generate value through IP capture Financial support and collaborative approach reduces financial risks associated with creative innovation Programme stimulates cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary working and the creation of new business models.
Financial and economic impact
5.10 One of the key objectives of Creative Europe is the creation of more resilient, stronger and more competitive businesses. This should provide a solid foundation for the growth of the sectors in the face of international competition, and for doing so whilst maintaining a reputation for producing interesting and relevant work that speaks to diverse audiences.
5.11 The cultural and creative sectors face specific financial challenges that go beyond those associated with sectors dominated by SMEs (although these still apply). Intangible assets (such as copyright), unique products (considering every performance, book, game or film as a single project), low capitalisation of companies and limited available business skills all create challenges for investors. Projects can be seen as too risky. The financial impact of
39 Creative Europe Desk UK (2018) The impact of Creative Europe in the UK http://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/sites/default/files/CE_ImpactUK__FINAL.pdf
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 22
Creative Europe therefore is generated directly, through provision of grants that absorb some of that risk, and indirectly through up-skilling40.
5.12 Initial funding can help the sector to overcome initial risks to provide gap or slate funding, and with one source of funding in place other match funding from private sources could be secured. This can make the difference between projects happening or not. For example, a stakeholder noted that in Scotland, the sector is not large enough to attract international finance.
5.13 Programme funds are also used to leverage other funding including match funding from Local Authorities, Trusts and Councils. The perceived risk of a Creative Europe funded project is reduced partly because the funding risk is shared, but also because the project has been through a rigorous appraisal and approval process and therefore has credibility.
5.14 Creative businesses can be supported to reduce costs through networking with specialist providers across Europe. Other routes to competitiveness include increasing revenue through scaling up production to reach larger audiences, accessing wider distribution networks or improved marketing through showcasing or other routes to market expansion, and having more diverse income streams (through creation of digital content for example).
Route to impact Financial and economic Funding can be used to leverage commercial investment impact Reduced cost/complexity of identifying, contacting and vetting partners, buyers, and investors and of using specialist partners Increased revenue through wider distribution networks, scaling up to achieve economies of scale Diversification of income streams to promote resilience Permanent and temporary jobs capture knowledge and skills for the sector.
Impact on knowledge, skills and capacity
5.15 Strong and resilient creative and media sectors rely on their ability to attract, retain, develop and grow a diverse range of talented individuals. The sector needs its creatives with their skills, talent, stories and expertise. But it also needs access to a wide range of other skills including entrepreneurship, technical production skills, digital skills, knowledge of different markets and their opportunities as well as knowledge of barriers to market entry.
5.16 The Creative Europe Desk UK interim impact assessment41 found that there were particularly strong impacts on the skills and employment prospects of young professionals and artists, with some suggesting participation in Creative Europe-supported projects had improved
40 See: European Commission (2011) Impact Assessment accompanying the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Creative Europe Framework Programme. 41 Creative Europe Desk UK (2018) The impact of Creative Europe in the UK http://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/sites/default/files/CE_ImpactUK__FINAL.pdf
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 23
their employability in a very competitive labour market. It also found that the professional development of key staff had directly improved their careers, including up-skilling to meet the project management and administrative responsibilities of the project. In addition, some training included academic and research methods for incorporation into working practices.
5.17 Access to skills and knowledge can therefore be developed either through broadening networks that connect skilled people with other, differently, skilled people, or more directly through training, work experiences, or artistic exchanges.
Route to impact Knowledge, skills and Support network developments that enable people to connect capacity within the with other skilled people. workforce Formal and informal training that improves knowledge and skills: creativity and associated specialist technical skills and production skills, R&D international market development including market research methods, business practice, marketing to international audiences business management, project management, administrative, entrepreneurship, marketing, and use of digital.
Audience and cultural development
5.18 The approach to audience and cultural development differs by sub-programme. Culture sub- programme looks primarily at audience development with a range of educational initiatives, collaborations with higher education institutions and schools, community engagement actions and linguistic and cultural translation. The MEDIA sub-programme puts a greater emphasis on the transnational circulation of audiovisual works across Europe. Circulation of films and other audiovisual content is a key priority of Creative Europe and the MEDIA programme brings a wider variety of films to UK audiences, while increasing audiences for UK films in the rest of Europe through its support for distribution, cinema exhibition, VOD services and film festivals.
5.19 Audience development is about overcoming barriers to participation including physical, geographic, and financial. It can be measured through increasing the number of views, footfall or tickets sold but it is also about finding new audiences in different countries or from different backgrounds, presenting work to them in optimum venues, theatres and performance spaces, or via digital or other formats. This can only be achieved through having quality content, ensuring programmes have international appeal and raising awareness through awards and other marketing efforts.
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Route to impact Audience development Opportunities from digital technologies used to access new (access to audiences audiences and disseminate works and benefits for Better data about international audiences and enhanced skills in audiences) and cultural use of data to identify and reach wider international markets. impact Additional resources enable partners to explore and respond creatively to shared European challenges Promotion of awards for supported content improves the prestige and reach for UK content globally alongside visibility of non-UK content within the UK Bringing both domestic and international audiences to access internationalist, culturally diverse and socially impactful cultural content.
Social impacts
5.20 The fragmented market for creative, cultural and audiovisual products in Europe and beyond means that it is challenging for audiences to access the stories and cultural perspectives from different places. This limits consumer choice but also means that people are unable to fully benefit from the cultural and social value that European cultural works convey. Routes to social impact are very diverse and include bringing international perspectives to local community audiences, supporting social integration through co-creativity and stimulating creativity through cultural connection.
5.21 In some cases, the route to impact is through the creative product or process itself by supporting projects that purposely seek to give voice to those in society who are rarely heard or to share the perspectives of those that are frequently misunderstood. This can involve bringing international work to UK audiences as well as exporting UK products and stories to Europe and the world. The importance of language preservation is an important component to this, and it is particularly important that Welsh language productions find wide and diverse audiences – Hinterland/Y Gwyll was an example discussed by stakeholders that was produced in both a Welsh and an English version as well as a Welsh sub-titled version – it was the latter version that held traction in the Scandinavian market where audiences are generally both multi-lingual and used to subtitles (see case study in section 8).
5.22 In other cases, the route to social impact might be more direct through outreach and providing opportunities for young people, economically disadvantaged groups, migrants and refugees to participate in creative processes or to work with creative companies.
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Route to impact Social impact Connecting communities through transnational exchange, dialogue and mobility to learn from other cultures Creation of content that explores European societal challenges Access to / participation in culture and education opportunities for the young, disadvantaged and marginalised through targeted outreach and events Strengthening and enabling wider dissemination of work from socially engaged companies and ensuring diversity and representation among grant beneficiaries.
Measuring impact: the survey
5.23 The six dimensions of impact provide a useful framework to describe how interventions work and what effects are anticipated across each dimension. There will be areas of cross-over where activity in one area has multiple effects, such as training in marketing that brings not just financial and audience benefits, but could also lead to new networks and partnerships.
5.24 There are some statistical measures of impact to accompany the framework. These include hard measures such as jobs created, and audiences reached. Most however, are harder to assess especially those effects that relate to softer outcomes such as improved motivation, social impacts and strength of partnership. This report is designed to capture hard measures where possible and attitudinal or other self-reported measures where appropriate.
Table 5-1: Measures of impact used in the report Impact Measures of routes to/ and impact Networks, partnerships Number of named partners in partnerships and Location of partners by country internationalisation Number of partners worked with Effect of Creative Europe on partnership formation Generation of new work Sustained international work Sustained partnerships Creativity, innovation, Capacity to take creative risks, experiment and or innovate research and Adoption of new business models and financial models development Methods used to encourage creativity and innovation Increased knowledge and skills relevant to creativity and innovation Creation of new works during and after involvement in Creative Europe Adoption of digital technology Interaction with HE Financial and economic Capture of Creative Europe funding into UK impact Improved business skills and knowledge Match funding secured Income generated by the project Sustained business internationally Financial resilience in the medium term
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 26
Impact Measures of routes to/ and impact Financial resilience post COVID-19 Jobs created during and after the project by companies Types of job created Knowledge, skills and Companies that had improved skills and knowledge capacity within the Types of improved skills and knowledge workforce Changed company capacity to work internationally Method of skill and knowledge acquisition Capacity to connect with talented people Knowledge of non-UK about culture and the UK Audience development Increased audiences for films, TV and other performances and art forms (access to audiences Mode of access to reaching audiences and benefits for Reach of UK products and work into Europe and beyond audiences) and cultural Reach of European products and work into the UK impact Reach into different UK communities and audiences Social impact Companies that promote European values Companies that hold and monitor equality and diversity policies and practices Projects that focus on experiences of diverse communities Source: SQW
Further sources of impact data
5.25 In addition, some secondary data sources have been used in the report. These are:
Monitoring data: Essential to map the scale of reach of Creative Europe and a measure of inputs. There were some issues with completeness of this data, but it did provide a good foundation for understanding the number of projects funded in the UK by the programmes, the scale of funding and their location.
European Commission Creative Europe Monitoring & Evaluation Reports: pan European reports describing the activities supported by the programme across Europe and structured to reflect the objectives of Creative Europe. These reports include some high-level data including financial resources allocated, number of projects, audience numbers films produced, books translated and artists supported.
Case study narratives: e.g. on Creative Europe UK website, annual reports and included in the Creative Europe Desk UK interim impact assessment. These outline plans and proposals, and feature highlights of selected cases. They are effective at demonstrating breadth of activity and its diversity, and in addition, some reference outputs or outcomes but they are not designed around the aspects of evaluation framework and metrics that report scale and impact are often missing.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 27
Addressing evaluation challenges: D6 & Arts Council of Northern Ireland ‘CORNERS - turning Europe inside out’
CORNERS sought to address the challenge of relating trans-national art experience and production with locally generated and owned initiatives. Through the series of Xpeditions – two weeks exploratory journeys to outer regions of Europe – CORNERS artists and researchers met active citizens, organisations and local artists, listening and collecting their stories. Those encounters were the base for artistic collaborations involving two or more artists from different corners of Europe.
The project involved 71 artists from 12 different counties. 8 separate Xpeditions visited 19 countries and more than 50 towns and villages. 16 different artworks were produced including a film screening programme, artistic guided tours, a collection of new and existing games, mappings, small community projects, workshops for kids and grownups, audio walks and live broadcast, and 11 CORNERS events each lasting 2 weeks.
The challenge of evaluating this complex set of activities was tackled by the project with an evaluation team embedded in the project. Their report notes that ‘The international cultural cooperation process is a long-term one, which is deep, subjective, and difficult to quantify and assess.’. Their work was both formative and summative. The evaluation used a multi-method approach of ongoing dialogue with artists and participants, observations and securing qualitative audience feedback through the use of a self-completion ‘passport’ to be filled out whilst experiencing the artwork. The ‘passport’ method was well-used in some places and at some events but in others it was not an appropriate tool. The combination of qualitative testimony from artists, audience feedback and observer interpretation provided a rich picture of the project and its learning. https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects/corners2 https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects/corners1
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 28
6. Impact on networks, partnerships and internationalisation
“Without the hugely valuable support from Creative Europe we would not have been able to work in innovative ways with large numbers of young people across Europe since the founding of our organisation. We have consistently led cooperation projects and have reached large numbers of audiences as well as building meaningful and highly relevant cultural exchanges for diverse artists for almost 20 years. We are more resilient, have a higher profile and innovative with more impact as a direct result of sustained Creative Europe funding.”
Source: SQW survey respondent
Introduction
6.1 Creative and business networks are fundamental to successful international exchanges, whether they be for creative, commercial or policy objectives. This section presents information that looks at the scale and reach of Creative Europe partnerships across Europe and beyond. It also considers how the programme internationalises those involved, providing opportunities and appetite for further international working.
6.2 This section uses monitoring data from the European Commission as this offers the best available evidence for the extent of formal partnership working taking place for projects – as it records the formal partners in each project. Survey results of key questions are also presented.
Programme design
6.3 Projects and organisations need support to access international networks and experience as there are both cost and cultural barriers that need to be overcome. Creative Europe support has been targeted at overcoming those barriers by funding networking opportunities, showcasing events, festivals and training that bring people from across Europe together. It also funds series of networks and cooperation projects whose creative purpose is built on partnership relationships.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 29
6.4 Stakeholders reported that many projects use their European experiences to build their skills and confidence for taking their work to different audiences in other parts of the work. They said European that the importance of networking events could connections - ability not be understated, and were concerned that in to innovate during future companies who sought access to festivals and events might be doubly disadvantaged in that uncertainty and they lack to support to access the events that learn from each European partners have, and that once there, they may now lack good will necessary for other - the soft skills trusted partnership relationships. which are all too
6.5 The formation of partnerships is core to the easily shrugged off design of Culture Cooperation Projects, as it is as non-essential - … only possible to apply with formal partners. Most without this we could of the other schemes do not require formal partnerships to be in place to receive funding. become parochial Nonetheless many projects under these schemes and inward looking will entail collaboration with partners, for example in the development of a production, even if they are not named partners under the Survey respondent grant agreement. Some of the schemes are also geared towards facilitating the development of networks and relationships, such as Networks, Platforms and Access to Market Events. Others are not specifically aimed at developing networks, but participation can offer informal opportunities to meet peers and network – for example attendance at a training course provides this opportunity.
Impact assessment
UK-based partners in Creative Europe
6.6 There are five countries that have been especially active in Creative Europe namely, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK. Using Cooperation Projects from the Culture sub-programme as an example, in the period between 2014-2019, 43% of Cooperation Projects had a UK partner and this was partly explained by the high quality of applications (the UK’s application success rate of 46.5% in 2020 is higher than the European average of 29.6% and has been growing). European partners have continued to value UK input to projects in recent years with 1 in 5 projects that were announced in 2020 having a UK partner. These projects will benefit from €1,754,931 for their involvement in 20 Cooperation Projects, across 29 countries delivering joint cultural initiatives with European countries, ranging from performing arts to
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 30
heritage and music42. This is especially important as many of these partners are based outside London with projects located in all four nations.
UK involvement in Culture sub-programme partnerships
The UK has consistently been a sought-after partner in Creative Europe projects;
o in the period between 2014-2019, 56 UK organisations were leads in Cooperation Projects, the Culture sub-programme's largest strand
o 146 UK Partner Organisations were involved in 175 Cooperation Projects between 2014-19
o all 28 currently supported European Networks have at least one UK member and 10 out of 11 European Platforms have UK members and involvement.
The scale and reach of partnerships
6.7 Almost two thirds of Creative Europe projects have formal partners.43 Of the 406 projects recorded as having UK beneficiaries, 252 (62%) involve international partners and 48 (10%) include multiple UK partners.
6.8 Many of these projects involve many partners from many countries. Figure 6-1 shows how many partners the projects with UK partners have. Five of the projects involve 39 partners.
Figure 6-1: Number of partners in projects with UK involvement
60 51 52 50
40 36 29 30 25 19 19 20 15 8 10
0 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10+ Number of partners
Source: European Commission, Creative Europe Project Results data
42 See: http://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/news/2020-cooperation-projects-results-continued- success-uk-european-cultural-partnerships-despite 43 European Commission. Creative Europe Project Results data [Accessed August 2020) https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/projects/
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 31
6.9 These partners are based in 36 countries across Europe. France, Italy, Germany and Spain are key partners in many of these partnerships. In total there have been 1,470 partnerships with partner organisations across Europe.44
6.10 Annex C provides a table that sets out the number of projects with UK beneficiaries that included partners in the countries listed, as well as the total number of partners in that country.45 It shows that formal partnerships are most common with French partners, who account for 15% of international partners and 41% of projects with an international partner including a French partner. On the latter point, a high proportion of projects involved partners from Italy (42%), Germany (40%), Spain (35%), Belgium (26%) and the Netherlands (23%).
6.11 Creative Europe has been important in developing international relationships among those companies that participated. Almost all respondents (95%) said it had been important with a majority (66%) saying it had been ‘very important’.46
6.12 Companies that were motivated to work internationally used Creative Europe to help them make or strengthen international connections. Figure A-9 in Annex A shows that:
78% said developing new partnerships/networks (90% for Culture and 69% for MEDIA) – the leading reason for Creative Europe and Culture sub-programme
61% said increasing opportunities for artist/professionals their organisation works with to operate and move across borders (86% for Culture and 44% for MEDIA)
57% said strengthening for existing partnerships/networks (67% for Culture and 50% for MEDIA)
54% said increasing opportunities for staff to operate and move across borders (68% for Culture and 44% for MEDIA).
6.13 All Culture and some MEDIA projects necessarily involve partners. Respondents were asked the number of organisations they had partnered with or were in a network/platform with as part of their involvement in Creative Europe.47 There were 118 respondents that reported some – 100% of Culture respondents and 50% of MEDIA respondents.
The survey shows how the numbers of partners reported as ‘formal’ partners in the monitoring data may under-represent the actual extent of partners involved. Survey respondents were asked about the number of partners that were either co-beneficiaries, or
44 Note this counts the total number of international partnerships rather than unique organisations or unique partnerships. Some European-based organisations are involved in multiple partnerships with UK organisations, and in some instances there are partnerships between the same UK- and European- based organisations. 45 Note that the number of partners is total number of partners rather than distinct partners. 46 For the five MEDIA respondents that selected ‘not important’ there is no clear pattern in terms of their engagement with Creative Europe. Four had been involved in multiple schemes and four had been involved in schemes that provided grants. 47 Europa Cinemas, beneficiaries of the Video Games scheme and those that had only attended training were not asked this question.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 32
non co-beneficiaries. Between respondents, 1,632 partner/networked organisations were reported – an average of 17 per respondent for Culture and 9 per respondent for MEDIA. Some of the respondents recorded a high number, up to a maximum of 186 for a consulted organisation, which reflected the depth of their engagement with the formal and informal opportunities that Creative Europe provides for networking and building relationships. Most of these respondents were involved in either a Network or Platform, which substantially increases the number of organisations that can be considered peers.
Figure 6-2: How important has Creative Europe been to developing your international networks and partnerships?
No answer
51% 66% Not important 86%
Very important 23% 18% Moderately important 11% 17% 3% 11% A little important Culture (n=71) MEDIA (n=87) Creative Europe (n=158)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
6.14 The majority of these partnerships or networks would not have happened without Creative Europe. Respondents were asked whether they had established new partnerships beyond those established specifically for a Creative Europe project that would not have happened without Creative Europe.48 76% of respondents said they had.
How partnerships and networks have been made and sustained
6.15 Partnership building requires time and commitment. Figure 6-3 shows how Creative Europe supports the formation of relationships. Reflecting the findings from the literature review and consultations, it covers opportunities to meet potential collaborators through the programme (e.g. at Access to Market Events, training events, conferences), the benefits from involvement to profile and reputation and the importance of having a project to collaborate on.
6.16 Overall, the opportunity to meet at events was the most common way relationships were formed (73%) closely followed by greater visibility for the organisations involved (72%). For Culture, the leading way in which Creative Europe supports relationships was having the opportunity to work on a project together (89%).
48 Europa Cinemas and beneficiaries of the Video Games scheme were not asked this question.
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Figure 6-3: In what ways did your involvement in Creative Europe facilitate the formation of partnerships?
73% Opportunities to meet at 64% events 84%
72% Greater visibility for your 61% organisation/partners 86%
Projects offering 67% something concrete to 49% work together on 89%
Reputational or 50% ‘kitemark’ effect for your 46% organisation/partners 56%
Reduced cost and 43% complexity of identifying 37% and contacting partners 50%
Creative Europe (n=157) MEDIA (n=87) Culture (n=70)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries of the Video Games scheme were not asked this question.
Benefits of partnership working
6.17 The opportunity to work with European partners also enhances intra-UK partnership development. Figure 6-4 shows the location of partners that respondents had worked with who they expected they would not have worked with without Creative Europe. It shows that involvement in Creative Europe has supported relationships within Europe for the vast majority, while a majority had also seen benefits to domestic relationships. Furthermore involvement in Creative Europe has led to work beyond Europe for almost half of all respondents.
Figure 6-4: Did your involvement in Creative Europe lead to you working with partners based in the following regions that otherwise would not have happened?
94% 89% 92% Culture (n=70) 59% 55% 53% 51% 48% 44% MEDIA (n=55)
Total (n=125)
UK Rest of Europe Rest of the world Location of partners
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Denominator only covers those who had formed partnerships through Creative Europe. Beneficiaries of the Video Games scheme were not asked this question.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 34
Creating networks: PRS Foundation Keychange
The first phase of the Keychange project was to create a network of women in the music business and support their careers through exposure to network events, showcases and a Creative Lab Capacity Building Programme. These were devised and run through six music festivals in Europe and an associate festival in Canada. A second project continued the talent development programme alongside an international campaign for gender equality in music., and the project continues to create new international opportunities for performance, creative collaboration and capacity building among European female musicians and industry professionals. It also brings together festivals from across the world to pledge towards programming more women. Keychange aims to promote the creative and economic contribution of female talent in Europe’s music industry through innovative, inclusive action. Extensive engagement through the network for Phase 1 (2017-19) of Keychange, included multiple participants, partner and audience surveys, ongoing research and data analysis, and discussions with Partner Festivals and Pledge Signatory Partners. This shaped the Keychange Manifesto.
The organisers reported that the “greatest impact by far though is the proactive network we have built. We pick up so much from that network which will have a lasting impact…. the societal impact of running a gender- equality focussed programme of this scale has been huge. We now have over 350 music organisations and companies signed up to our ‘Gender balanced by 2020’ pledge which has a massive societal impact and offers the platform and development opportunity to thousands of women in music around the world. The knock-on impact of influencing music industry, arts sector and European Cultural policy through our Keychange Manifesto is of course very positive too…..the Keychange Pledge results in many bookings for women artists around world, many consultancy and freelance roles/opportunities being taken up by industry professionals who were on the programme, and in terms of wider impact many job opportunities being filled by women as a result of the gender equality pledge and our high profile campaign” https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects/keychange
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 35
Internationalisation
6.18 Working internationally generates new commercial and artistic activity. Respondents were asked whether they had work in or delivered activities/products in new countries, either as part of their project or involvement, or beyond their involvement that they would still attribute to Creative Europe. Figure 6-5 shows that 76% of respondents had worked or delivered activities/products in new European countries while 60% had done so in new countries in the rest of the world. The exposure to new contacts, markets and experience in different countries thus leads to opportunities to create works for international markets rather than just domestic markets. For example, producers involved in the programme have utilised their networks to shift from producing for domestic markets to co-producing films for domestic and international markets. Creative Europe thus has an effect of internationalising the work of those within the sector.
Figure 6-5: Did your organisation work in or deliver activities/products in new countries that you would attribute to your involvement in Creative Europe?
84% 87% 73% 76% 61% 64% 62% 58% 57%60% 50%54% 40% 36% 38% 39% 29% 32%
In Europe In the rest of In Europe In the rest of In Europe In the rest of the world the world the world During project/involvement Beyond project/involvement Either Culture (n=64-69) MEDIA (n=70) Creative Europe (n=134-139)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Higher n number is for during project/involvement as beyond project/involvement included N/A option for those whose involvement was ongoing. Beneficiaries of the Distribution (automatic/selective) scheme were not asked this question and those who had only attended training were not asked about during their involvement.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 36
Europa Cinemas
Creative Europe co-finances a pan-European network of 2,761 screens in 1,134 cinemas. These cinemas can be found in 685 cities in 34 countries and provide audiences with opportunities to access a much wider range of film than commercial cinemas as 52% of screenings are of European films (compared with an average of 30% in commercial cinemas). Founded in 1992, the network is the single largest beneficiary of Creative Europe and receives €10 -11 million a year. Cinemas must be based in countries participating in Creative Europe and films that can be supported must also be from these countries.
47 UK cinemas with 104 screens have been members of the Europa Cinemas network during the period of 2014 to 2019. They are spread across 33 towns and cities in the four nations. 70% of them are outside of London.
From 2014 to 2019, 9% of all admissions and 16% of all European film admissions in Europa Cinemas network were for British films. There were more than 38.2 million admissions for British films in this period among the cinemas of the Europa Cinemas network – with 84% of those admissions reported outside the UK. UK films are often present in the top performing films in the network. 2019 saw The Favourite, Downton Abbey, Yesterday, Rocketman and Sorry We Missed You all make the top 10.
See: Creative Europe in the UK 2018: Results report: https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/publications
Source: Creative Europe in the UK
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 37
6.19 Reflecting this, consultees considered Creative Europe to be an important gateway to working internationally. For many it also provides their first taste of working within their sector outside of the UK or with professionals based in other nations. For others it builds on and strengthens existing experience of working internationally, delivering opportunities to meet partners in new countries as shown above. The survey found that involvement in Creative Europe had developed a majority of respondents’ knowledge and skills around accessing international markets (see Section 9).
6.20 Having engaged internationally, companies were motivated to continue. Asked whether Creative Europe had changed their appetite for working internationally, the majority of respondents reported an increased appetite for working in Europe and in the rest of the world with the remainder mostly saying it did not impact their appetite for working internationally but it was already high (Figure 6-6).
Figure 6-6: Did your involvement in Creative Europe change your appetite for working internationally in Europe and the rest of the world?
6% 3% 5% 3% No answer
Yes, it decreased it 64% 56% 60% 74% 72% 73% No, it remained low
Yes, it increased it
35% 33% 34% 25% 23% 22% No, but it was already high Culture MEDIA Total (n=156) Culture MEDIA Total (n=156) (n=69) (n=87) (n=69) (n=87) Europe Rest of the world Appetite to work internationally
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Longevity of relationships and ongoing impact
6.21 Finally, the survey considered the longevity of the partnerships formed. Asked whether their partnerships had been sustained beyond the lifetime of their involvement in Creative Europe, 94% said the partnerships that had been developed through Creative Europe had been sustained.49 Of the 23 respondents whose involvement had not finished, 21 had plans to continue working with their partners beyond the lifetime of their involvement.
6.22 As with any industry the creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors thrive on relationships between people who share common purpose. In qualitative feedback, respondents drew attention to how the process of sharing training and production experiences, working on
49 As a proportion of those whose involvement had ended – 19% of respondents said their involvement had not ended.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 38
projects over months and years contributed to relationships based on trust and their evolution in some cases to friendships. They said that these could not have happened without the international networking opportunities that Creative Europe affords.
Collaborative learning
“Creative Europe's support has enabled us to truly work in partnership, to develop a communal vision with likeminded, innovative European groups - that sense of wide mission and legacy has been really stimulating. It has also enabled us to lead the sector on an international level and while we hope to continue to build the resulting Network, the initial 'creating something new' was an energy we'll no doubt miss.
Secondly, the regular contact with our partners was both reassuring and invigorating. We increased our shared understanding that while individual circumstances are unique and shaped by the countries we are based in, we also have a lot of common challenges and successes to share. It has been extremely rewarding to work with spirited partners that offer a fresh perspective on our work and bring in new ideas, influenced no doubt by their own cultural, and country-specific surroundings. ….. That live, current and regular sounding board has been a real boost to our ability to innovate”.
6.23 These networks continue to be developed and evolve through participation in networking activities with over half of companies responding saying that they had continued to attend showcasing, networking and conferencing events since their involvement in Creative Europe that would not have happened without it (Figure 6-7).
Figure 6-7: Have you / your project(s) been involved in any of the following beyond your involvement with Creative Europe that you would attribute to Creative Europe?
54% Festivals 59% 48%
Showcasing / 44% performance 39% opportunities / touring 49%
41% Trade / industry events 46% 35%
28% Awards 39% 14%
Conferences / other professional development events 61%
Creative Europe (n=154) MEDIA (n=85) Culture (n=69)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Note that MEDIA respondents were not asked about ‘conferences / other professional development events’. Multi-response question.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 39
Internationalisation: EU Collective Plays!
Prime Cut Productions were a partner in THE COLLECTIVE PLAYS! and has also led a Creative Europe project under the previous round. Based in Northern Ireland, their experience of international working had a significant positive effect on the confidence and ambition of the company. The Collective Plays! encouraged the collaboration of playwrights of different nationalities. The result of each playwriting collective was the creation of an inclusive, polyphonic play.
The dual effect of working with transnational partners was first ‘the realisation, as an independent theatre company, that you are allowed to have ambition and dream big’; and alongside this support from local authorities and arts councils who saw their work on an international stage and ‘got behind the idea of Northern Irish organisations becoming ambassadors and we were encouraged to attend events, and form international partnerships…’ https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects/eu-collective-plays
Collaboration and partnership
“As a project funded organisation with a small team, the multi-annual nature of Creative Europe support has enabled our organisation to attract significant local match funding due to the scale, quality, reach and distinctiveness of our projects that would not otherwise have been possible….Creative Europe has provided opportunities to develop significant local and national partnerships to embed our work in areas of low cultural engagement. These cooperation projects provide significant additional capacity to deliver work with an extended team of international peers, which has enabled us to implement projects at a scale and complexity that would otherwise not have been possible. As a small organisation, Creative Europe provides unique opportunities for international travel, networking and development, which has a major impact on both the nature and reach of our programme, and on the practices of the artists we work with. Most importantly, bringing exceptional international artists and their work to areas of the UK which can feel remote from the rest of the world provides vital space for intercultural dialogue, to build understanding and to foster more welcoming and inclusive communities.”
Source: SQW Survey respondent
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 40
7. Impact on creativity, innovation, research and development
“Our artistic programme would have been much more insular and parochial……..Concepts of what makes art, authorship and ownership and boundaries of artistic innovation and creativity would not have been interrogated and explored. New relationships and networks of benefit to the organisation would not have been formed. Quite simply we would not have. been able to develop and deliver two ground-breaking innovative projects that are still ongoing and sustainable. They are universally acclaimed, have broken boundaries in terms of cross sectoral work and we were able to develop them in this way because of Creative Europe. End of story. I developed a new IP that continues to bring in revenue to my organisation and has formed the basis of our company's growth over the last 6 years. “
Source: SQW survey respondent
Introduction
7.1 Impacts arising from the creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors’ ability to innovate, be creative and engage with research and development are multi-faceted. They arise from the capacity to take financial risks to engage with artists and audiences that are otherwise overlooked, to take time to create innovative products, and to invest in marketing and promotion that entice audiences to engage with entertainment that they might not otherwise. Impacts also arise from learning and applying new skills and technologies including digital skills.
7.2 The survey provided evidence of the extent to which Creative Europe has supported companies to innovate in the way they work, or to bring new products to audiences. Open text responses in the survey often elaborated on this effect and extensive quotations from respondents are also included in this section.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 41
Impact assessment
7.3 Creative Europe has enabled companies across the UK to take creative risks, experiment and innovate. As Figure 7-1 shows, 90% of respondents agreed that this was an effect of the programme.
Figure 7-1: Proportion of respondents saying their involvement in Creative Europe had enabled them to take creative risks, experiment and/or innovate, either during or beyond their involvement
98% 90% 84%
Culture (n=62) MEDIA (n=83) Creative Europe (n=145)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey.
7.4 The desire to innovate and experiment is part of the motivation of many companies to participate in Creative Europe in the first place. It is striking that while 62% said they were motivated because of this, 90% of companies found that they had experimented and / or innovated. Participation has led more companies to innovate than thought they would. Figure A-9 (see Annex A) looks at the motivations for participating in Creative Europe:
62% said developing new ways of working (83% for Culture and 48% for MEDIA)
62% said to take risks and innovate (74% for Culture and 53% for MEDIA)
11% said to safeguard creative control of their project (4% for Culture and 16% for MEDIA).
7.5 The survey asked about some of the specific ways that respondents might have experimented through Creative Europe (see Figure 7-2). The answers show the wide variety of ways in which supported organisations have been able to innovate, with new ways of learning, sharing skills or training (70%) and new ways of creation (70%) most common. There are noticeable differences between the two programmes, with Culture respondents more likely to report different ways of reaching & working with communities, public and audiences (+42 percentage points) and cross-sector working (+35pp) while MEDIA respondents are more likely to report experimenting with sustainable practices (+36pp).
7.6 Reflecting the aims of the programme, a substantial proportion of respondents had experimented with new business models (50%), ways to better control rights (43%) and methods of remuneration (25%).
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 42
Figure 7-2: Ways that respondents had experimented through their involvement in Creative Europe
New ways of learning, sharing skills or 70% 58% training 87%
70% New ways of creation 60% 84%
Different ways of reaching & working 61% 43% with communities/public/audiences 85%
New ways of touring and/or showcasing 54% 42% work 69%
52% Cross-sector working 37% 73%
50% New business models 53% 45%
43% New ways to better control rights 34% 56%
32% Sustainable practices 47% 11% Creative Europe (n=145) 25% New methods of remuneration 28% MEDIA (n=83) 21% Culture (n=62)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
How innovation and creativity was supported
7.7 Figure 7-3 shows that the increased budget was most commonly identified (77%). The need for funding to help absorb what might otherwise be considered risky commercial propositions was referenced in the open text survey responses. This was particularly notable of film and TV projects. MEDIA programme is designed to encourage new business models and gives partners the ability to take creative risks, along with the preparation, time and development funds to improve the quality of scripts, productions or other creative products. Allocation of secure funding means that companies are able to diversify income streams, step aside from dependency on usual financial donors and help to shift demand towards more diverse and rich cultural offerings
7.8 A higher proportion of Culture sub-programme respondents than MEDIA sub-programme respondents said creativity and innovation were supported by exposure to networks, ideas, approaches, skills and knowledge. For MEDIA sub-programme respondents, the two survey options relating to finance were the most common responses.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 43
7.9 Also worth highlighting here is that the programme has developed skills and knowledge that are relevant to creativity, innovation, research and development. In a later section (see Figure 9-1), results are reported that show how respondents perceive a positive impact on knowledge and skills relating to creativity (89%), development (82%), research (77%), entrepreneurship (64%), utilising digital technology (63%) and specialist technical (62%). Formal learning and learning opportunities scored lowest, which likely reflects a substantial proportion of respondents not engaging in these through the programme.
Figure 7-3: How Creative Europe supports creativity and innovation
77% Increased the available budget 71% 84%
75% Exposure to new networks, new ideas 63% and/or approaches 92%
69% Ability to draw on skills and knowledge 54% of partners 89%
65% Reducing financial risk 67% 61%
Creative Europe (n=145) 39% Through formal learning/training 40% opportunities MEDIA (n=83) 39% Culture (n=62)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 44
Overcoming risk: European film distribution
“Without the support of Creative Europe, we wouldn’t have been able to release so many European films in the UK over the years. Acquiring and promoting foreign-language European films is risky, as it involves building an audience for these films which often don’t have any well-known cast attached. When it doesn’t work, distributors can face great losses. That is why Creative Europe’s support was so appreciated, when we had the chance to get it – it offered us a safety mattress. Without this kind of security, we would have certainly bought and released less of these films, focusing on the “safer” choices - whose commercial success was the most likely. Moreover, we would also have been less keen on taking risks to engage in ambitious and expensive media and PR campaigns to give these films a chance to get higher visibility. As a result, part (at least) of the public would have lost the opportunity to discover the works of great filmmakers and the offer would have been narrowed. It is also worth noting that many of the films which received support from Creative Europe went on to achieve significant commercial success, bringing money into UK cinemas and other related businesses.”
Source: SQW survey respondent
7.10 Figure 7-4 shows that the majority of respondents had created a new product for their project, introduced a new product to market as part of their project, or had done either of those following their project.
Figure 7-4: New products/content/activities created or introduced to market either (a) as part of their project/involvement in Creative Europe or (b) beyond their involvement in Creative Europe
77% 81% 79% 78% 70% 68% 67% 67% 61% 63% 57% 50%
Created - as part Created - beyond Introduced to Introduced to of involvement involvement market - as part of market - beyond involvement involvement Culture (n=62) MEDIA (n=72) Creative Europe (n=134)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries of the Distribution (automatic/selective) and Europa Network schemes were not asked this question.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 45
7.11 The scoping phase found that one impact of involvement in Creative Europe is the creation of activities/products/content that is of higher quality than it otherwise would have been – reflecting the programme supporting innovation through reduced financial risk and improved knowledge and skills. The European Commission monitor awards that Creative Europe funded projects have secured50. Consequently, the survey asked whether respondents had won awards for the activities/products/content created through Creative Europe, with 31% reporting that they had (16% for Culture and 44% for MEDIA).
7.12 The application of digital technologies is also a core element of innovation. The survey found that:
57% of respondents’ projects included a digital offer or made innovative use of digital technologies (70% for Culture and 45% for MEDIA)51
55% of respondents felt better equipped to use digital technologies as a result of their involvement with Creative Europe (66% for Culture and 47% for MEDIA)
7.13 In total, 44 Creative Europe projects had higher education organisations as named lead partners. Several others would have included higher education inputs. Indeed, 42% of respondents had worked with higher education providers, for example working with students, academics and using university facilities (54% for Culture and 32% for MEDIA)52.
50 See for example: European Commission (2019) Creative Europe Monitoring Report 51 Those who had only participated in training were not asked this question. 52 Those who had only participated in training were not asked this question.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 46
8. Financial and economic impact
“Creative Europe offered an invaluable source of support and finance to build sustainable , meaningful co-productions and to allow us to develop innovative content.
Creative Europe has been absolutely vital to this company. It supported us financially, allowed us to develop more and more ambitious projects, reach new markets, new audiences and ultimately to grow both creatively and commercially.
We have sustained ourselves more consistently through the lifetime of the project, supporting more artists and employ more people that would have been possible without the funding.”
Source: SQW survey respondent
Introduction
8.1 One of the key objectives of Creative Europe is the creation of more resilient, stronger and more competitive businesses. Routes to competitiveness include reducing risks (see Section 7), increasing revenue through access to larger and/or different audiences, and diversification of income streams (through creation of digital content for example). The effect of a more competitive sector should be seen through job creation, (including sustained jobs), enhanced turnover and more resilient organisations.
8.2 This section explores these effects through presentation of monitoring data that shows the financial effects of participation in Creative Europe and information from survey responses. The survey used the same definitions for ‘jobs’ as used in the EU monitoring returns to enable respondents to use a consistent data source.
Programme effect
8.3 373 UK-based companies in total have participated in Creative Europe 2014-2019 ranging from individuals and small artistic production companies, universities and umbrella arts organisations, to large film distribution companies. They were awarded over €68 million to
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 47
support cultural and media companies located across the UK (Figure 4-1). Table 8-1 lists the number of projects and companies supported by each strand over this period alongside the total grants secured from the Programme into the UK. It also shows the €32m that was secured by European distributors for the distribution of UK films.
Table 8-1: UK -based projects supported by Creative Europe 2014-2019+53 Row Labels Number of Number of Grant total (€) projects companies Culture total 253 212 27,019,574 Cooperation Project 189 185 22,444,777 European Platforms 51 26 3,996,626 Literary Translation 13 10 578,172 MEDIA total 351 160 39,800,244 Access to Markets 20 8 1,744,211 Audience Development 18 19 632,578 Development: Single Project 28 26 1,355,000 Development: Slate 24 18 4,038,177 Development: Video Games 16 13 2,061,332 Distribution - Automatic Generation 30 17 2,075,130 Distribution - Online 28 15 8,235,899 Distribution - Sales Agents Generation 18 7 1,249,254 Distribution - Selective 74 18 3,656,751 Europa Cinemas 6 1 1,361,206 Film Education 7 5 207,769 Film Festivals 11 2 462,000 Training 30 8 3,007,499 TV Programming 41 34 9,713,437 Cross-Sector total 5 6 1,462,150 UK-based beneficiaries 609 373 68,281,968 *Funding to European distributors of 196 240 32,159,411 UK films Grand total 805 613 100,441,379 Source: Creative Europe Desk UK Monitoring data * This funding is awarded to international partners to distribute UK films. Number of projects reflects number of films.
53 This data is not comprehensive, as it does not include all current projects and some values are missing.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 48
Impact assessment
Creative Europe generates financial impacts
8.4 Companies get involved in Creative Europe for a range of reasons, and access to a source of finance was one of the more frequently cited. If you are a small 65% of respondents said that raising finance for company, you can’t their project (52% for Culture and 73% for MEDIA) was a motivation for participating in put 50k or 75k into Creative Europe (Figure A-9, Annex A). the development of 8.5 In addition they were motivated to get involved by a project … too improving their skills and business risky. It really is a knowledge (Figure 9-1) with most wanting to learn more about raising finance (81% yes, 28% a way of igniting lot). This was more common for MEDIA ambition and respondents (40% responded ‘a lot’ compared to igniting companies 12% of Culture respondents). desires to do 8.6 Reflecting the aims of the programme, a substantial proportion of respondents had something different experimented with new business models (50%), and fresh and stand ways to better control rights (43%) and methods out in the of remuneration (25%) (See Figure 7-2) marketplace 8.7 Securing match funding is a precondition of all Creative Europe grants, with organisations only allowed to apply for up to a maximum of 80% of Participant interview their budgets depending on the scheme.
Culture schemes secured their match from a range of sources including Arts Councils in England (49% of respondents) Wales (8%) and Northern Ireland (8%) with Creative Scotland providing match to 14% of respondents. A third of respondents said their match came from earned income (36%), their own investment (36%), and other Trusts / Foundations (34%). 29% secured funding from local authority or other local funding. The majority of Culture projects sourced their match from UK sources. The main international source of match was from other national agencies or public funding bodies in Europe (22% of respondents) (Table A-10)
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 49
MEDIA schemes had more varied and more commercial sources of match. Over half of MEDIA respondents provided match themselves with Creative Europe has 26% stating match came from national agencies been absolutely vital and public funding bodies, and 21% saying it came from a broadcaster/streamer. 30% of to this company. It MEDIA respondents said their match derived supported us from co-producers based in Europe and a range financially, allowed of other European match was cited by respondents. Up to 8% of respondents cited us to develop more match funding sources from beyond Europe and more ambitious (Table A-11). projects, reach new 8.8 MEDIA projects attracted match from a wider markets, new geographical area. Overall, 90% of Culture respondents said their match came from the UK audiences and while 32% said they had attracted resources from ultimately to grow Europe and 7% from the rest of the world. For MEDIA the balance was slightly more towards both creatively and international sources of additional funding with 85% commercially. citing match from the UK and 44% from Europe, and 25% from the rest of the world. Survey respondent 8.9 High levels of funding additionality were reported by projects. Nearly half of all projects said they thought none of the match would have been brought forward were it not for Creative Europe while over a third said that they would have secured only some of the match without Creative Europe (Figure 8-1).
Figure 8-1: Do you believe you would have secured the match funding for your project(s) without the Creative Europe grant?
53% 47% 48% 42% 41% 34%
10% 7% 5%3% 5% 4%
No, I would not Yes, I would have Yes, I would have No answer have secured any secured some of it secured all of it of it Culture (n=59) MEDIA (n=62) Creative Europe (n=121)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Denominator excludes those who did not secure match funding and Europa Cinema beneficiaries were not asked this question.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 50
Financial impact of MEDIA support on admissions
8.10 The UK has also benefitted from funding received by European distributors to acquire and release UK films across Europe. In total, European distributors have received €32.1m across 207 different films.
8.11 Creative Europe Desk UK analysed the films produced between 2013 and 2019. Out of the 937 independent feature films produced by the UK or with a lead UK co-producer, 456 had cinema admissions in other European countries. All of these 456 films generated 112 million admissions in European countries outside of the UK and Ireland. Of these films, 35% had support from Creative Europe.54 The supported films accounted 80 million admissions, or 72% of all admissions – showing that MEDIA supported films achieving higher audience figures than non-supported films. Assuming the average cinema ticket across Europe costs €7.1955, the revenue generated by MEDIA-supported UK films totalled just over €575.2 million, much of which was received by organisations in the UK.
Financial sustainability
8.12 The involvement of companies in Creative Europe has a clear financial benefit for the companies and their ability to deliver the projects for which they were funded. The longer- term effects of that experience on the companies is harder to gauge but the survey does indicate aspects of financial resilience among the beneficiary cohort. For example, 46% of respondents said that they did secure new revenue streams through their Creative Europe project (34% of Culture and 56% of MEDIA respondents56)
8.13 Over half of all respondents said that the impact had been sustained beyond their project that could be attributed to their involvement in Creative Europe (Table 8-2). Of those 67 respondents who responded positively, two third said that the additional funding had come from UK and/or European sources with a third saying from the rest of the world (Figure 8-2)
Table 8-2: Have you secured funding or income (including sales, new contracts, sponsorship, etc) beyond your involvement that you would attribute to Creative Europe?57 Culture (n=59) MEDIA (n=62) Total (n=121) Yes 51% 57% 54% No 49% 41% 45% No answer 0% 1% 1% Total 100% 100% 100%
54 The analysis covers 168 of the 207 funded films and covers 2013 whereas the 207 films are 2014- 2019 only. 55 https://www.cinemauk.org.uk/the-industry/facts-and-figures/uk-cinema-industry-economics- and-turnover/average-ticket-price/ 56 Europa Cinemas and those who had only attended training were not asked this question. 57 Europa Cinemas not asked this question
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 51
Financial effects: Hinterland/Y Gwyll
Fiction Factory are a Cardiff-based production company making high quality, original and popular drama. One drama series . Hinterland/Y Gwyll received support for it first and third series from Creative Europe. This series was shot back to back in English and Welsh. Located in Aberystwyth, the production found a lot of local support during filming from the community and authorities. A partnership with the University allowed them to use buildings during vacation periods for filming that were otherwise empty and off- season production times meant that they provided a boost to the local economy. The production partner S4C commissioned a study of the economic impact of the production which was reported to have provided a boost of over £1million during one season’s filming to the Aberystwyth economy.
The production would not have been made were it not for two factors. The first was Scandi-noir; when Wallander and the Killing became popular hits and middle England and America were consuming subtitles it tipped the balance. The second was Creative Europe finance because even with a new market, the perceived risk by funding partners was too high to commit. ‘Creative Europe funding was the mechanism to get investment over the line because it was non-recoupable’ Other investors (including S4C and the BBC) were willing to commit to production once this funding was in place.
This funding model has subsequently provided the template for other producers and other dramas produced in Wales in the Welsh language. Hinterland / Y Gwyll subsequently sold to more than 30 countries and is available on Netflix worldwide. The programmes were first broadcast on S4C with a bilingual version aired on BBC One Wales later. https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects/hinterlandy-gwyll-series-3
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 52
Figure 8-2: Where has this new funding or income come from?
67% UK 59% 79%
63% Rest of 69% Europe 54%
36% Rest of the 41% world 29%
Creative Europe (n=67) MEDIA (n=39) Culture (n=28)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Europa Cinema beneficiaries were not asked this question.
8.14 The reasons for this effect were attributed to a range of factors. Most importantly though, the increased visibility and credibility that companies gain from participation in Creative Europe were cited by around three-quarters of respondents (Figure 8-3).
Figure 8-3: How did Creative Europe enable you to secure this funding/income?
79% Increased visibility 74% 86%
73% Increased credibility 72% 75%
Improved my 51% awareness/knowledge 59% of relevant funding 39%
51% Met partners via the 51% programme 50%
34% Met investors/funders 41% via the programme 25%
Creative Europe (n=67) MEDIA (n=39) Culture (n=28)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 53
8.15 Many of the companies that have been involved in Creative Europe reported that they had experienced positive financial impacts in the medium term. These financial effects relate to them being more competitive in Europe, achieving more turnover and being more financially resilient that would otherwise be the case. This was more often reported by MEDIA than by Culture projects (Figure 8-4).
Figure 8-4: Financial impact of involvement in Creative Europe over the medium-term
Culture (n=65) 32% 31% 15% 17% 5%
MEDIA (n=87) 28% 26% 22% 10% 14%
Creative Europe (n=152) 30% 28% 19% 13% 10%
Culture (n=65) 37% 11%5% 40% 8%
MEDIA (n=87) 28% 25% 17% 20% 10%
Creative Europe (n=152) 32% 19% 12% 28% 9%
Culture (n=65) 34% 20% 17% 22% 8%
MEDIA (n=87) 23% 25% 31% 13% 8%
Creative Europe (n=152) 28% 23% 25% 16% 8%
Culture (n=65) 18% 37% 32% 5%8%
MEDIA (n=87) 17% 31% 34% 7%10%
Creative Europe (n=152) 18% 34% 34% 6% 9%
A little Moderately A lot Not at all No answer
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
8.16 When asked about financial resilience in the context of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic some respondents felt unable to answer (the survey was live in August 2020 when the true effect on companies in the sector was yet to be fully understood). Nevertheless, while the effect of the pandemic was clearly felt among respondents, rather more respondents said that involvement in Creative Europe had made them more financially resilient than had not.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 54
39% of respondents said it had not made them more resilient while 57% said that it had to some extent (Figure 8-5).
Figure 8-5: Would you say your involvement in Creative Europe has made you more financially resilient to the challenges of COVID-19?
No answer 35% 41% 39% No 12% 14% 20% 16% Yes, a lot 18% 16% 31% Yes, moderately 21% 25% Yes, a little Culture (n=65) MEDIA (n=87) Total (n=152)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
We are much further ahead of the game as we had the financial means to continue [during COVID]. It has also given my company credibility, and this is encouraging to potential partners and financiers
Survey respondent
Job creation
8.17 Projects supported by Creative Europe have led to job creation during the delivery of the project, and for some of the companies involved, they have gone on to create jobs that they attribute to Creative Europe. In total over three quarters (77%) of respondents reported that jobs had been created either during or following the (78% for Culture and 76% for MEDIA):
45% reported permanent jobs were created during their involvement/project (34% for Culture and 63% for MEDIA)
63% reported temporary jobs were created during their involvement/project (65% for Culture and 72% for MEDIA)
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 55
37% reported a job or jobs that were created following involvement in Creative Europe and were attributable to their involvement (31% for Culture and 42% for MEDIA).
8.18 Table 8-3 sets out the total number of jobs that were reported to have been created. They stated that 385 permanent (full and part-time) jobs were created during the lifetime of the project and that an additional 126 have been created since that were attributed to Creative Europe. Note that these figures come from 36% of the core beneficiaries invited to the survey and not all respondents answered this question. We caution against extrapolating these figures to estimate the jobs created by the entire population of beneficiaries due to the disparate nature of the schemes and individual projects, and as a result level of job creation.
Table 8-3: Numbers of job created by respondent companies58 Type of job Culture MEDIA Creative Europe Created during – Total 94 291 385 permanent Full-time 47 147 194 Part-time 39 101 140 Created during – Total 969 1,236 2,205 temporary Full-time 60 669 729 Part-time 853 413 1,266 Created since and attributed to CE 35 91 126 Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Those that had only attended training were not asked about jobs created during their involvement.
8.19 The types of job created were very varied and reflect the breadth of opportunity supported by the creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors. These include artistic and creative roles but also include management and administration roles, business and finance roles and other specialist skills including programming, education and technical roles (Figure 8-6).
58 Note that the full-time and part-time figures do not necessarily sum up to the total figures, as some respondents just provided the total figure and no full/part-time breakdown.
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Figure 8-6: Types of jobs created by projects participating in Creative Europe
44% Artistic/creative 49% 38% 30% Management 25% 37% 29% Administrative 19% 42% 27% Development 42% 6% 19% Finance 17% 22% 18% Researcher/consultant 19% 17% 18% Technical 16% 22% 18% Press, marketing & comms 16% 22% 18% Programming 18% 18% 10% Education 10% 11% 8% Other 8% 0% 7% Legal 10% 3% 7% Curatorial 7% 8%
Creative Europe (n=153) MEDIA (n=88) Culture (n=65)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
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9. Impact on knowledge, skills and capacity
“Our organisation, artists and creatives, and those of partner organisations would not have had this opportunity - to learn and create together, to form networks and to create and grow an international base - something that is very difficult to do for small organisations, but particularly lone and freelance artists and workers……………….Our organisation has improved its international standing and reputation through this project, leading to growing interest on the international market. This would not have happened without Creative Europe.
It has enabled our organisation to develop a long-standing and internationally recognised expertise in sector-specific, cultural exchange involving the devolved nations of the UK, the UK and a range of small and large EU states, other European countries and other global regions, in particular the MENA region, India and SE Asia. We would not have been able to develop this expertise in multilateral, multilingual cultural and literary exchange without investment from Creative Europe”
Source: SQW survey respondent
Introduction
9.1 Competitive creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors need access to a range of creative skills alongside knowledge of technical production skills, digital skills, knowledge of different markets and their opportunities as well as knowledge of barriers to market entry. Access to skills and knowledge can therefore be developed either through broadening networks that connect skilled people with other, differently, skilled people, or more directly through training, work experiences, or artistic exchanges.
9.2 Each year the MEDIA programme for example supports around 60 international training programmes. Three UK-based training providers were funded in 2018 to share their expertise
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with international participants. Meanwhile, in the same year, 184 audiovisual professionals took part in the training on offer across Europe59.
9.3 The evidence presented in this section draws from the impact survey and includes those who participated in training events alongside other grant beneficiaries. Training and Cooperation scheme projects are particularly relevant as the survey shows 51% of Cooperation projects included formal training opportunities within their design.
Impact assessment
9.4 Creative Europe provides access to formal training and informal learning opportunities. It was access to opportunities to develop new knowledge and skills that attracted 60% of survey respondents to the programme (Figure A-9 72% for Culture and 52% for MEDIA).
9.5 The survey asked respondents whether their involvement in Creative Europe had been beneficial for their organisation’s skills, knowledge and/or capacity across a variety of areas. More than three quarters of respondents said that it had improved the following seven areas; creativity, industry/sector knowledge, development, raising finance, accessing international markets, audience development and research (Figure 9-1Figure 9-1).
Over 40% of Culture respondents said they learned a lot about creativity (40%) and accessing international markets (43%) (Figure A-9) compared with development (42%) and raising finance (40%) of MEDIA respondents (and Figure A-10Figure A-10).
Fewest MEDIA respondents said they had gained knowledge about working with community groups (41% Figure A-9), compared with Culture respondents for whom fewest reported learning about entrepreneurship (58% Figure A-10).
59 Creative Europe Desk UK (2018) Creative Europe in the UK. https://issuu.com/mediadeskuk/docs/cultureresults_issu
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Figure 9-1: To what extent has your involvement in Creative Europe benefitted your organisation’s skills, knowledge and/or capacity in the following areas?
Creativity 16% 35% 38%
Industry/sector knowledge 18% 29% 35%
Development 15% 31% 35%
Raising finance 21% 32% 28%
Accessing international markets 17% 26% 35%
Audience development 21% 35% 21%
Research 27% 27% 23%
Marketing 30% 27% 17%
Working practices 22% 35% 16%
Production 21% 27% 25%
Project management & admin 19% 34% 20%
Business management & practice 27% 28% 10%
Entrepreneurship 27% 23% 14%
Utilising digital technology 26% 23% 15%
Specialist technical 26% 22% 14%
Working with community groups 23% 20% 9%
A little Moderately A lot
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Enhancing capacity
9.6 As a result of enhanced skills and knowledge, Creative Europe projects reported that their capacity to engage in international work had been enhanced in a number of ways (Figure 9-2).
90% of respondents said their capacity to engage in international collaboration had improved -and for 56% it had improved a lot
The ability to set up and lead international partnerships was reported by both Culture and MEDIA respondents to be the area where they had improved most with 69% of both Culture and MEDIA respondents identifying this as the area where their capacity had improved a lot (Figure A-11 and Figure A-12)
Individual career progression had improved as had employability for both Culture and MEDIA respondents but this was the area where fewest reported a significant impact.
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Figure 9-2: To what extent has your involvement in Creative Europe benefitted your organisation’s skills, knowledge and/or capacity in relation to the following?
Your ability to engage in international 13% 21% 56% collaboration Understanding of professional practice 15% 25% 48% and working context in other countries
Your ability to set up partnerships 16% 26% 44%
Your ability to engage in international 17% 31% 38% markets
Your ability to lead on partnerships 17% 25% 43%
Your organisational strategies 24% 31% 29%
Your career progression 20% 30% 31%
Your employability 23% 33% 24%
A little Moderately A lot
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Support from Creative Europe has facilitated seven years of capacity building with other cultural organisations in multiple European countries and has enabled us to collaborate more profoundly with those partners. Its support has helped develop a more robust, knowledgeable and connected documentary community in the countries where we have worked.
Survey respondent
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Skills acquisition from both formal and informal mechanisms
9.7 The way that learning was acquired and applied was more through informal learning opportunities than through formal training courses. Informal learning arises through regular interaction with trusted colleagues, which can be as part of a creative process or any other development project. It is part of a process of knowledge acquisition secured through regular contact, conversations, observations and questioning. It goes beyond acquisition of fact, to creation of knowledge and a subtle recognition of cultural differences in language or aesthetic that are critically important to the success of creative projects.
9.8 Informal and formal learning can co-exist as for example, people attending a formal training learning learn from the classroom sessions and also from informal conversations with their peers and fellow trainees. Informal learning was especially important to Culture respondents (69% said informal learning was very important to their organisation compared with 50% of MEDIA respondents Figure 9-3).
Figure 9-3: How important were different learning opportunities to your organisation’s knowledge, skills and capacity development?
3% 8% 3% 6% 5% No answer 8% 12% 3% 6% 5% 22% 27% Did not 31% 50% experience 69% 58% Very important 45% 26% 35% 21% Moderately 20% important 13% 14% 19% 16% 15% 12% A little important 14% 11% 8% 6% 2% 5% 4% Culture MEDIA Total Culture MEDIA Total (n=64) (n=78) (n=142) (n=64) (n=78) (n=142) Not important
Formal learning opportunities Informal learning opportunities
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries of the Distribution (automatic/selective) scheme were not asked this question.
9.9 Drawing on international experience was important to 91% of respondents. Again, this was especially important for Culture.
9.10 Table 9-1 summarises responses to questions asked about facilitating access to such people;
86% of respondents said that it had enabled them to access expertise
85% that it had enabled them to facilitate the mobility and exchange of talent/professionals
74% that it had enabled them to promote new or emerging talent.
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Table 9-1: Impact of Creative Europe in connecting companies with talent and experienced professionals. Did your involvement with Culture MEDIA Creative Creative Europe…? (n=63) (n=85) Europe (n=148) enable you to work with or Yes 83% 68% 74% promote new or emerging talent? No 17% 32% 26% enable you to work with Yes 95% 79% 86% experts, more experienced professionals or experienced talent? No 5% 21% 14% facilitate the mobility and Yes 97% 74% 85% exchange of talent/professionals? No 3% 21% 12% No answer 0% 5% 3%
9.11 There are few if any, alternative ways for companies to access these skills and knowledge in an international sphere. Most of the respondents (88%60) said they would have been unable to access the skills and knowledge other than through Creative Europe (95% of Culture respondents and 81% of MEDIA respondents).
60 Beneficiaries of the Distribution (automatic/selective) scheme and those who had only attended training were not asked this question.
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Collaborative learning: Mind the Gap – Crossing the Line
Crossing the Line was a collaboration project bringing together organisations that work with learning disabled artists from Sweden, France and the UK. The Bradford-based company Mind the Gap led the collaboration which involved three training residencies in each of the partner countries, ongoing partner meetings and the Crossing the Line Festival held in France in January 2017. The latter was attended by 1448 people including 40 international participants from 11 countries.
An evaluation of the project showed how these organisations had learned about theatre production and audience engagement in each of the different countries, and how they had supported learning disabled artists in their partner countries. The Festival attracted interest in future collaboration from other international partners. The artists themselves felt more confident and inspired to do more international work.
“It was great to see all three companies and get a real sense of each company’s established history, ambition, rigour and aesthetic. It was also valuable to see the aesthetic differences between the companies in such a (generally speaking) non-competitive, non-judgemental context”
Participant quoted in the evaluation report. https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects/crossing-line
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9.12 Finally, and related to soft power, learning occurs through mutual dialogue. Just as UK participants learned about European partners, so they learned about the UK. Figure 9-4 shows that the majority of respondents considered non-UK partners to have been exposed to the best practice from the UK, with a better understanding of UK professional practice and exposure to both UK generated content and talent.
Figure 9-4: Do you think that your non-UK participants/partners have benefitted in the following ways from their involvement in Creative Europe?
87% Exposure to learning and best 73% practice from the UK 93%
87% Better understanding of UK 67% professional practice 97%
Better understanding of the UK 86% market (inc creative & cultural 70% context) 93%
82% Exposure to UK content 67% 90%
82% Exposure to UK talent 63% 92%
Creative Europe (n=30) MEDIA (n=30) Culture (n=60)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries of the Distribution (automatic/selective), Video Games and Development schemes and those who had only attended training were not asked this question.
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10. Impact on audiences and cultural development
“We would not have been able to take risks and invest in our successful projects which have gone on to reach many millions of audiences throughout the world”.
“The programmes have added significant value to our organisation by giving us the opportunity to create new access points for audiences to enjoy European films. In addition, we’ve developed exciting and lasting partnerships and relationships with film festivals, cinemas and like-minded organisations in the film and in parallel industries. Overall, the Creative Europe programme has facilitated a variety of valuable activities that would not have existed without its support.”
“We simply wouldn't have been able to make any of cross cultural projects happen, or benefit from the peer to peer exchanges and continued relationships and opportunities to work together. We couldn't have reached as big an audience, engaged as many participants or made such a powerful impact on our sector”.
Source: SQW survey respondent
Introduction
10.1 Culture and MEDIA were said by stakeholders to provide an important way for people across Europe to satisfy curiosities about themselves and their neighbours. There may be associated benefits from learning about each other that can be felt in terms of cultural relations or soft power.
10.2 The barriers to European film for example are felt in a competitive environment where films need to compete with giant multi-media companies particularly from the US. The Europa
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Cinema network is an important network for film distribution. It accounts for 20% of first run cinemas in Europe and its programme share of European films is just under 60% compared with 30% in commercial cinemas. In film, audience development includes ensuring films are screened in different territories but also that they are promoted (for example through film festivals), and that audiences are offered opportunities for education through film education programmes for young people.
10.3 For Culture projects, audience development is derived from reaching new audiences but also emphasising mutual learning in the process of creative development and inclusion of different communities in the creation of the work itself.
10.4 Impact measurement in this section comes from survey data and MEDIA audience data. The latter is provided by Creative Europe Desk UK’s analysis of BFI audience data.
Impact assessment
10.5 Film, TV, and digital games have the capacity to reach massive audiences worldwide. Creative Europe Desk UK analysed the films produced between 2013 and 2019. Out of the 937 independent feature films produced by the UK or with a lead UK co-producer, 456 had cinema admissions in other European countries. All 456 films generated 112 million admissions in European countries outside of the UK and Ireland. 35% these films had support from Creative Europe. The MEDIA-supported films generated 80 million admissions.
10.6 Companies that participated in Creative Europe were motivated by taking their work to an audience, including new audiences and new ways to connect. Figure A-9 reports the motivations for participating in Creative Europe:
41% said to increase the diversity of our organisation’s programming/offer (52% for Culture and 33% for MEDIA)
32% said to increase existing audiences (28% for Culture and 36% for MEDIA)
32% said to deepen connections with existing audiences (27% for Culture and 41% for MEDIA)
47% said to find new audiences (52% for Culture and 44% for MEDIA)
Increasing audience size
10.7 Two thirds of respondents said that their involvement in Creative Europe had enabled them to reach larger audiences (Figure 10-1), while a slightly smaller proportion said it had enabled them to reach different audiences either internationally or in the UK (Figure A-7).
The combined use of digital access alongside reaching audiences in physical settings predominated with much lower proportions of respondents using only digital or only physical settings to reach an audience
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Audiences in the UK were reached by as many respondents as audiences overseas reflecting the two-way exchange of projects and distribution relationships
78% of Culture respondents said they had increased their international audience compared with 55% of MEDIA respondents. The lack of increase may however simply reflect a baseline position that beneficiaries were already reaching large audiences with earlier works. This is likely to be true for many MEDIA companies.
Fewer respondents said that they had reached different types of audiences in the UK or internationally. This may be due to a data deficit, or that audiences that were already diverse.
Figure 10-1: Has your involvement in Creative Europe enabled your organisation to reach larger audiences?61
18% 19% No or N/A 29% 33% 36% 45%
55% 55% Both 45% 44% 37% 36%
16% 15% 6% 11% 16% 16% Physical settings and/or traditional 11% 13% 12% 10% 12% 11% media Culture MEDIA Creative Culture MEDIA Creative (n=62) (n=78) Europe (n=62) (n=78) Europe Online/using digital (n=140) (n=140) technology Reach larger audiences Reach larger audiences in the UK internationally
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
10.8 The survey asked respondents to provide audience figures. This audience data was incomplete and consequently it under-represents the audience reach of Creative Europe. This is because:
The survey population is just 36% of the core beneficiary population
Of the survey respondents, 44% did not answer this question (20% for Culture and 66% for MEDIA)62
For those providing a total figure, 24% did not provide a breakdown by region (22% for Culture and 26% for MEDIA)
61 Beneficiaries of the Training scheme and those who had only attended training were not asked this question. 62 The question was also not asked of those who only attended training programmes
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10.9 Nevertheless, the data does demonstrate the massive reach of MEDIA, with supported projects reaching audiences of 402 million views/performances, with the size reflecting the focus on audiovisual. It also shows the reach of MEDIA projects’ UK audiences compared to European audiences; for every audience member in the UK there are ten across Europe. For Culture, supported projects reported an audience of 5 million views/performances. Many of these audiences will have been in-person although Culture projects also made use of digital technology to reach audiences.
Table 10-1: Audience reached through Creative Europe Culture MEDIA Creative Europe Total audience 5.0m 402.0m 407.0m UK audience 965k 7.1m 8.0m % with no UK 6% 7% 6% audience European audience 2.3m 71.8m 74.1m % with no European 11% 13% 12% audience Rest of the world 205k 301.0m 302.1m audience % with no rest of the 53% 41% 49% world audience Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries of the Distribution (automatic/selective) and Distribution: Sales Agents scheme and those who had only attended training were not asked this question.
Audience development
10.10Sometimes, works need to be tailored to appeal to different audiences. Such tailoring includes the need to recognise cultural differences such as different aesthetics or the translation of literary works. In others it might be part of the production cycle and involve audiences or different artistic communities in the creation of works. By working across the production cycle Creative Europe has enabled three-quarters of companies responding to the survey to tailor their work for international audiences.
Table 10-2: Has your involvement in Creative Europe led to works/projects/products being better tailored to international markets?
Culture % MEDIA % Total % Yes 47 76% 51 70% 98 73% No 15 24% 13 18% 28 21% Not applicable 0 0% 9 12% 9 7% Total 62 100% 73 100% 135 100%
10.11Increasing accessibility of works may not change the work itself but rather how it reaches different audiences. This might include the addition of subtitles or dubbing films into different
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languages. In other cases, works may reach different audiences by digital media or by using wider distribution networks, or performing in different venues. Three quarters of Creative Europe respondents said that their project had made both UK content more accessible to European audiences, and European content more accessible to UK audiences (Figure 10-2).
Figure 10-2: Has your project(s)/involvement made UK cultural content (e.g. audiovisual works) more accessible to European audiences?
83% 86% 78% 74% 75% 65%
UK content more accessible to European content more accessible to European audiences UK audiences Culture (n=62) MEDIA (n=73-80) Creative Europe (n=135-142)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries of the Europa Network and Distribution (automatic/selective) schemes were not asked about making UK content more accessible to European audiences, while beneficiaries of the Video Games scheme were not asked about making European content more accessible to UK audiences.
10.12Reaching new audiences is achieved through learning about them in a range of different ways. This can be achieved through experience, as would be the case with film and media distribution where many films and products are being handled each year, or through partnering with knowledgeable and experienced partners who can share audience intelligence. Figure 10-3 shows that three quarters of Creative Europe respondents said they learnt about new audiences because of participation (85% of Culture and 58% of MEDIA respondents).
Figure 10-3: Learning about existing and new audiences through Creative Europe
85% 73% 68% 57% 58% 44%
Better understanding of existing Learnt about new audiences audiences Culture (n=62) MEDIA (n=50) Creative Europe (n=112)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries of the Training and Development schemes were not asked this question.
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10.13 A further way of understanding audiences is to engage them in the production process. 77% of Culture respondents said their project involved working directly with audiences compared with 29% of MEDIA respondents.
Connecting with communities: Walk the Plank – School of Spectacle
Four host cities across Europe created public arts spectacles / parades as part of a ‘learning by doing’ training programme run by Salford-based Walk the Plank with partners in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Lithuania and Ireland. Five different training courses (schools), provided 131 places to creative practitioners from eight European countries delivering over 392 guided learning hours. Four cities hosted six public arts events attracting an audience of 59,400 people. The aim was to bridge the gap between “community events” and “major events” by creating performance spectacles with the communities in host cities. The approach to training was learning through practice in an intense 7-day training culminating in performance. It involved a combination of seasoned creative practitioners to emerging talent, university educated to self-taught, with a diverse spread of ages from 21 to 57, male or female, but primarily female. Occupations ranged from street, circus and theatre professionals, to community artists, visual artists, designers, curators, makers, dancers, aerialists, administrators and community leaders.
The evaluation report said the cultural activity was especially valuable in its capacity to bring people from different backgrounds together without emphasizing their social, ideological or other differences… and that it turned many watchers into doers.
https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects/european-outdoor-arts-academy-%E2%80%93-school- spectacle-training
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10.14 The effect of reaching different and wider audiences is difficult to gauge and will vary from one project to the next. But one project provided an illustration of how to provoke audience interaction through art installations in public spaces.
Provoking community conversation: On the Move: Pig
Pig is an art installation designed by artist Seth Honnor and produced by Jocelyn S. Mills (Kaleider5 Exeter, UK). Pig is a large, transparent Piggy bank designed to be placed in public space. Inside there is an illuminated sign that reads “This is a community fund. You can contribute to it if you like, and once you’ve agreed how to spend it, you can open me and spend it.” In the framework of IN SITU ACT, Pig has, since May 2018, toured many festivals in six cities in Europe including the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, and the Hull Freedom Festival. Reaction to Pig is captured by young reporters with images and text published in an online multilingual magazine; Pigzine.
A project report captured the experiences of Pig in various cities across four standard themes of community, responsibility, diversity, and frequency. It showed how different communities reacted to the installation in their public spaces. It opened up discussions among people covering a range of societal issues such as education, migration, poverty, climate emergency, and animal rights. Its appearance at festivals and major events created ‘improbable / unusual spaces where people of different origins, sex, beliefs and ages shared their experience..’. It also reinforced the importance of recognition of public spaces as cultural spaces in towns and cities.
http://www.in-situ.info/en/activities/en/pig-an- experiment-in-collective-decision-making-43
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11. Social impacts
Creative Europe support and networks has made us able to move from an "import and export" approach to European work. Without Creative Europe we would have toured work that we admired from Europe in the UK and promoted work from the UK to European festivals and venues. But we would not have been able to collaborate across borders on sharing ideas and challenges, developing artists, developing the art form, upskilling, making work, developing audiences, etc..
Source: SQW survey respondent
Introduction
11.1 Creative Europe recognises the role that culture and creativity play in communities across Europe. Its primary purpose is the strengthen the competitiveness of the sector so that it can continue to generate jobs and wealth. It does this through removing barriers to participation, investing in competencies that catalyse innovation and connecting producers. But it also recognises that Europe is more than a single market, “it is also a great cultural project”63. One that recognises and values cultural and linguistic diversity, strengthens the European identity and sustains social cohesion. In this context, routes to positive social impact are very diverse and include bringing international perspectives to local community audiences, supporting social integration through co-creativity and stimulating creativity through cultural connection.
11.2 Creative Europe supports this activity through transnational dialogue and exchange, providing opportunities for cultural engagement through direct and indirect involvement and creation of content that explores European social challenges. The effect of these interventions is complex and not easily captured in single metrics. The quote below illustrates how what might start as a financial proposition develops into a rich, multifaceted set of actions that develops the art form itself whilst bringing new works to develop audiences.
Impact assessment
11.3 In survey returns some projects said they thought that their work had wider influences on behaviours or on policy makers. A few project beneficiaries who responded to the survey
63 European Commission (2018) Mid-term evaluation of the Creative Europe programme (2014- 2020)
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(excluding those who had only attended training) said they thought their involvement had an impact on policy formulation. 32% of Culture beneficiaries and 14% of MEDIA reported this to be an effect. Some projects were designed to promote behaviour change and policy development with a targeted agenda. For example, Keychange developed its campaigning and advocacy work through the creation of its ‘Manifesto64’. Julie’s Bicycle led a cooperation project designed to link environmental campaigning and behaviour change with cultural policy platforms.
11.4 Many of the projects, particularly those funded through Culture are designed to achieve social impact. The survey was designed to capture the spread of such impacts although not its depth. For example, it asked beneficiaries about whether the projects or activities there were involved in were designed to explore values, culture, community engagement and linguistic diversity.
11.5 The survey response (Figure 11-1) showed that Culture sub-programme projects were more likely to be focussed on social impact as:
95% of Culture respondents said that their involvement promoted European values,
89% connected international content and culture with local communities and
82% of Culture survey respondents said their project developed their audience’s understanding of other cultures.
Figure 11-1: Did your involvement in Creative Europe do any of the following?
78% Promote European values 62% 95%
Develop the audience’s 65% 48% understanding of other cultures 82%
Connect international content and 65% 42% culture with local communities 89%
57% Connect international communities 43% 71%
Enhance the knowledge and skills of 46% 34% marginalised groups 58%
Support the preservation of the UK’s 41% 43% cultural and linguistic diversity 39% CE (n=62) Include a focus on climate change, 28% sustainability and/or environmental 20% causes 35% MEDIA (n=65) 17% Support the integration of refugees 8% Culture (n=127) 26%
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Those who had only attended training were not asked this question
64 https://www.keychange.eu/themovement
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.
11.6 For many participating organisations, promotion of equality, diversity and inclusion are built into their organisations policies affecting their staff but also their work and engagement with audiences (Table 11-1).
Table 11-1: Equality, diversity and inclusion policy within respondents’ organisations Culture (n=72) MEDIA (n=98) Creative Europe (n=170) Organisation has policies in place which actively promote the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion amongst its staff Yes 90% 80% 84% No 6% 12% 9% Don't know 4% 8% 6% Organisation has policies in place which actively promote the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion amongst its audiences/partners/stakeholders Yes 81% 70% 75% No 10% 21% 16% Don't know 10% 8% 9% Source: Creative Europe impact survey
11.7 Social impact was also sought through either audience participation or creative involvement with specific groups (Figure 12-2). The survey asked respondents whether their project included a focus on participation from different groups:
63% of Creative Europe respondents said their project focussed on work with young people
34% of respondents said their project focused on women and
33% said their project focussed on people from Black or other minority communities.
11.8 In some cases, projects have been supported specifically because they were designed to tackle under-representation of communities. Two examples, one a MEDIA project and one a Culture project show the positive effects of representing Asian children and women in digital media.
Representing diversity: MEDIA development support “Creative Europe slate funding enabled us to develop a drama series for young kids that featured British Asian culture. We were able to hold workshops for new British Asian writers, reach out to the British Muslim community for guidance and research and finally make 2 series of the drama which was very well received by all kids but particularly well received by British Asian kids”.
Source: SQW survey respondent
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11.9 The Creative Europe website hosts many examples of projects that include a focus on particular groups within communities. One such project, A Woman’s Work is provided as an example.
Achieving social change: A Woman’s Work
Women play a key role in many manufacturing and service industries – for example, textiles, electronics, food and drinks, plastics and pharmaceuticals – but this reality is not strongly represented in European cultural archives. A Woman’s Work is a project that uses photography and digital media to address that deficit through artistic collaboration and exchange across borders, and the co-production of exhibitions, publications and online resources. A Woman’s Work is a 24 month collaborative programme, funded by Creative Europe, in which cultural partners in the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Ireland, France, Finland and Germany are creating an online platform for 20 artist projects.
A symposium of panels and presentations were held as part of Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography – Sound+Vision and included A Woman’s Work. Ffotogallery and Diffusion Director, David Drake, remarked on the “chronic underrepresentation of women in work” to this day, highlighting statistics exposing the gender disparities which persist … around 30% of the available positions and less than 10% of the highest paid jobs. Featuring some of the most visible and exciting female leaders in the audiovisual industries in Wales and beyond, the symposium however reported that there was a growing, collegial and supportive network of women leaders who are making Welsh and European arts a more equal and thriving ecosystem.
http://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects/womans-work
http://europeanprospects.org/channel/a-womans-work-symposium
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12. Looking ahead
Assessing the evidence base
12.1 The intervention logic for Creative Europe is that investment in a range of activities for the creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors (including skills development, audience development, investment in high quality content and promotion of European networks) would lead to enhanced European competitiveness, with a sector better equipped to operate in a digital environment, generating high quality works, reaching new audiences and expanding markets. Ultimately the impact of this would be felt with sustainable, inclusive and smart economic and employment growth; European cultural diversity and richness protected and promoted; and EU shared values underpinned65.
12.2 This report has presented evidence from a range of different sources that help to identify and quantify the effect of Creative Europe within the UK. The report has shown effects in a range of different ways including;
Companies that say they are stronger as a result of their participation in Creative Europe as it has increased their networks and access to talent, improved or diversified their business models and supported them to generate a wide range of works that have received critical acclaim, and / or commercial or community impacts
Companies that have used digital technologies in a range of different ways that include helping to manage business processes, create new works or distribute works across new territories
A better-connected sector both within the UK and between UK artists, creatives and production companies and those in EU member states, other European countries and beyond. There were several examples of companies that became simultaneously skilled and energised by the experience of working with European partners to want to continue to set their horizons beyond their locality and look to international collaboration and international audiences.
12.3 Examples and case studies of impact have been drawn from a range of places including those available from:
Creative Europe Desk UK website that features key information about funded projects with appropriate web-links66
65 European Commission (2018) Mid-term evaluation of Creative Europe (2014-18). https://eur- lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52018SC0159&from=EN 66 https://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/funded-projects
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European Commission annual monitoring reports67
The Creative Europe Desk UK Interim Impact Report68.
12.4 Whilst examples of impact are plentiful there is a less well-developed evidence base to enable a systematic and comprehensive assessment of the reach of such effects and their scale69. This means that whilst examples of important effects can be accessed and reported it is less evident whether these are exceptional examples or typical. There are three fundamental reasons for this.
12.5 Evidencing values and attitudes. Some of the anticipated impacts of Creative Europe are difficult to identify and measure in a standard way. Conceptually, we know that some impact can be captured statistically such as the change in turnover over time, or number of volunteers, unique audience numbers or tickets purchased. Others are harder to capture, particularly if they relate to measuring new international partnerships (where quality is as important as quantity), co-creation of artistic works, or curation of safe spaces for cultural dialogue. Such effects can be acknowledged to have intrinsic value and this could be sufficient for some policy dialogues. But where an assessment is required then either proxy measures or attitudinal measures need to be deployed. For example, soft power is assessed by a basket of indicators that combine indicatives measures (such as annual attendance at the global top 100 museums, creative goods exports and a language index score) with subjective data based on international polling. Evidencing values and attitudes through self-assessed responses to attitudinal survey questions is established practice. Indeed, the surveys used to inform this report used extensive self-assessed measures of effect and impact to provide an indication of the extent to which issues such as community effect or confidence are typical.
12.6 Availability of metrics. Robust monitoring data and a secure project management and Customer Relationship Management system are essential prerequisites for any evaluative assessment. Creative Europe Desk UK do not have project management responsibilities for the funded projects whose contractual relationship is with the European Commission. Therefore, contact information, reporting updates and payment information is both designed by the European Commission and held by them centrally. Comprehensive annual monitoring reports70 are published by the European Commission and they include information on budget allocation, audiences reached, people trained, awards received, and participant diversity for example. These are not however necessarily broken down to national level or a sub-national level. National Creative Europe Desks therefore rely on reports from the European
67 European Commission (2019) Creative Europe Monitoring Report https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/content/european-commission-presents-creative- europe-monitoring-report-2019_en European Commission (2018) Creative Europe Monitoring Report. https://creative-europe- desk.de/files/downloads/CreativeEurope_Monitoring_Report_2018.pdf 68 Creative Europe Desk UK (2018) The impact of Creative Europe in the UK http://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/sites/default/files/CE_ImpactUK__FINAL.pdf 69 Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy (2015) Cultural and creative spillovers in Europe: Report on a preliminary evidence review. 70 See for example https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/content/european- commission-presents-creative-europe-monitoring-report-2019_en
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 78
Commission and information shared by funded projects. The availability of standard monitoring data was not therefore ‘owned’ by any individual national partner. The effect for this study was felt in different ways, the UK Desk needed to invest resources in the CRM that was used to distribute the survey to ensure it was up to date and that the necessary permissions had been sought. Secondly, key monitoring information was not available to the study (for example information about jobs created and sustained) from project final reports throughout the period and for all projects. Some funded projects had an active relationship with the Desk, but this would not be the case for all, and this had a dampening effect on information requests.
Figure 12-1: Assessing sources of evidence Measures of routes to/ and impact Evidence assessment Networks, partnerships and internationalisation Number of named partners in partnerships Monitoring and survey data provide a broad Location of partners by country indication of the scale and reach of partners, and Number of partners worked with for those respondents who had secured support Effect of Creative Europe on partnership early in the programme there was an assessment formation of the duration and consequence of this activity. Generation of new work There is no searchable and coded directory of new Sustained international work work arising from partners with Creative Europe Sustained partnerships funding. This means that impact assessment cannot systematically be linked to outputs.
Creativity, innovation, research and development Capacity to take creative risks, experiment Survey data provides an assessment of the extent and or innovate to companies have applied technical, business or Adoption of new business models and artistic skill as a result of Creative Europe. financial models The digital reach of projects or works is not Methods used to encourage creativity and systematically captured and reported, and this innovation therefore misses potential global reach of projects. Increased knowledge and skills relevant to There is information about university involvement creativity and innovation where they are a key partner but more limited Creation of new works during and after information about number of students involved involvement in Creative Europe and where university staff and students engage Adoption of digital technology but as audience, host, or provider of facilities. The Interaction with HE effect of HE involvement is probably therefore under-reported. Financial and economic impact Capture of Creative Europe funding into UK There is a dataset that lists which UK partners Improved business skills and knowledge have been director beneficiaries of the Match funding secured programme. There is better financial data for the Income generated by the project commercial impact of MEDIA than for Culture. Sustained business internationally Survey data also revealed the effect on company Financial resilience in the medium term confidence and sustainability. Financial resilience post COVID-19 Some job data was available through the survey, Jobs created during and after the project by but this was not sufficiently representative for companies these figures to be ‘scaled up’. Regular and routine
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 79
Types of job created monitoring data capture from beneficiaries both during and after the completion of Creative Europe projects would help to capture quantifiable effects such as jobs created or turnover. Knowledge, skills and capacity within the workforce Companies that had improved skills and Survey data provides an assessment of the extent knowledge to which companies have applied technical, Types of improved skills and knowledge business or artistic skill as a result of Creative Changed company capacity to work Europe. internationally More systematic monitoring data could provide a Method of skill and knowledge acquisition count of activities such as people trained in Capacity to connect with talented people particular areas. Knowledge of non-UK about culture and the UK Audience development and cultural impact Increased audiences for films, TV and other Audience figures for film and media projects can performances and art forms be estimated from market reports. Mode of access to reaching audiences Overall audience figures for other projects are Reach of UK products and work into Europe harder to capture (requiring each performance or and beyond event to record a headcount) and audience profile Reach of European products and work into is rarely available requiring as it does, GDPR the UK compliant data collection in what is often a fluid or Reach into different UK communities and informal environment. audiences Social impact Companies that promote European values Survey data provided an understanding of how Companies that hold and monitor equality many companies keep records to monitor equality and diversity policies and practices and diversity of staff and audiences. Monitoring Projects that focus on experiences of diverse information from each funded project would be communities required to capture the actual characteristics and annual data would be needed to track change. Surveys are probably the most effective way to capture how projects recognise and embody a particular set of values. Source: SQW
12.7 Changes to media and culture sectors are difficult to attribute wholly or in part to Creative Europe. This is a challenge for policy makers and researchers alike and requires dedicated resources for holistic evaluation that captures effects in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Assigning any effect directly and wholly to a Creative Europe funded intervention could be justified in some cases, for example if company could not make a trip to visit an international producer or booker without financial intervention and if that visit then precipitated a sequence of positive events the attribution of effect to the intervention can be justified. In many instances, however, a range of factors affected an outcome and those outcomes take time to become fully realised. The survey utilised for this study was careful to
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 80
frame questions of effect to ask participants about effects that could be attributed in whole or part to Creative Europe.
12.8 It would be useful for future programmes to implement an evaluation strategy that captured solid monitoring data and with a requirement for an assessment of effects captured in the evaluation framework. This could comprise;
standard agreements that monitoring and reporting data, including final project reports, be shared under GDPR approved systems between country Desks and the European Commission
an expectation that national Desks would run an annual check-in survey both during and after project completion to capture standard metrics (number and location of current partners, number and types of jobs, company location, turnover, and digital footprint and attitudinal effects (such as commitment to international working and quality of international partnerships)
a commitment to impact evaluation among funded projects so that their web-presence includes not just plans of activity but also statements of impact on audience, artists supported, communities reached and quality of feedback.
Summary
12.9 The evidence reviewed in this report shows that Creative Europe has been an established source of valued support across the creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors. The effects of the financial contribution made to projects and organisations through Creative Europe has been significant. It has had the direct effect of supporting jobs, increasing turnover and improving financial sustainability amongst its beneficiaries. The financial support has had a number of other effects, notably by reducing the element of financial risk it has enabled collaborative, creative projects to progress, supported new talent and reached new markets in ways that would not otherwise have been possible.
12.10Whilst financial support has been vital, the programme operates in a deliberately collaborative, strategic, and accessible way to build skills and confidence amongst the sectors. It has done this by bringing people from across different countries and specialisms together, building sustained networks and partnerships, fostering new technical skills and innovation and enhancing knowledge and understanding of new audiences and international markets.
Final reflections on impact of Creative Europe
12.11The impact survey was undertaken at a time when the creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors were reflecting on how they would adjust to the withdrawal from the European Union and the government decision to also withdraw from Creative Europe. The survey used the opportunity to ask beneficiaries what they would miss about Creative Europe. This question allowed projects to articulate the unique contribution that the Programme had made to them,
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 81
their organisation or their sector. 124 different responses were provided. Some of these were short statements, but many respondents had taken the time and the opportunity to share brief paragraphs summarising their reflections. This section summarises those responses into five key themes.
Funding
12.12Many respondents said they would miss the financial elements of the programme, and outlined what it was about the nature of the funding that they would miss. This included that funding was significant, was for a long duration, and because it was not linked to tightly specified deliverables it encouraged innovation and creativity. We will miss the funding of innovative, risky projects as without Creative Europe we will not be able to do this - or only on a very limited scale.
The leverage it provides for other funding streams.
Creative Europe offer long term and strategic funding for developing our publishing offer significantly. It allowed us to work across borders and more directly serve our diverse UK audiences by funding work from and for their communities.
….it's almost impossible to raise development funding for international projects - as such, Creative Europe provided a vital lifeline for the creative development of our company and our industry.
Creative Europe funding gave our small business creative freedom to explore ideas and development without being constantly distracted by scrounging for the next tiny funding opportunity. My company first received CE funding in 2015, then 2017, and just received it a third time in 2020. Because of this, our reputation has grown in the world game market, and business opportunities that would not have previously been available are now within reach. We have also grown from 4 to 18 people in the past 5 years ………….Thanks Creative Europe!
Connecting with international policy agendas
12.13Some projects have been at the vanguard of harnessing the creative, cultural and audiovisual sectors to address European or global challenges. They said they will miss the opportunity to continue to do so, and benefit from the changes in social and environment policy that they see the EU enacting. It gave us an opportunity to share experience and develop responses to shared external challenges - in our case, climate change and the environment - as a networked and pan-European community, enabling learning from different contexts and a much better understanding of what shared solutions could be (and where adaptation to local circumstances is essential)………………. We will hugely miss being part of these conversations and projects as they develop.
In music we face global challenges and the ability to work closely with partners from different countries and to share ideas is crucial to the prosperity of our work and the whole of the UK music sector.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 82
Learning new skills and experiences especially for young people
12.14Many projects that worked with young people expressed disappointment that they would no longer be able to benefit from the experiences of travel, performing in a different country, or working with peers from other cultures.
The financial support which allows our organisation to function at its best on every level, to be more creative, take greater risks, develop talent relationships, business relationships, to train a new generation of people entering the industry and promote diversity.
The connection with like-minded people and organisations in other European countries, and the ability to give young people from [our area] the opportunity to work with their peers in dance across Europe
We will miss the opportunity to connect teenagers and young people across borders and although will find new ways to be global, will miss the unique and joined up strategic support Creative Europe has always offered.
Being unable to partner in Creative Europe projects will have a huge impact on our organisation….. we will be less able to bring young exciting European ensembles to our audiences, and we will miss the innovative projects that we are part of.
Learning from collaboration with different cultures
12.15The process of engaging in collaborative activities that brought together people with very different experiences and perspectives was seen as a valuable learning experience and one that would be difficult to replicate. Several respondents said they would miss transnational working and learning. Opportunity for staff and artists to travel and experience working with partners across Europe and the learning that brings which has huge benefits for us as an organisation.
The learning benefits of transnational peer partnerships which are great and should not be underestimated in terms of one's organisational development. There is no other mechanism other than EU funding which sets out to achieve this.
The meaningful relationships with European peers, and the pleasure of co-creation and collaboration
The learning benefits of transnational peer partnerships which are great and should not be underestimated in terms of one's organisational development. There is no other mechanism other than EU funding which sets out to achieve this.
The network of peers I met due to the taking part in a Creative Europe course has proved highly valuable. I have worked with many of them since then on my projects and theirs and seen the many successful international projects they have been involved in continue to grow. Watching the animation scene grow [elsewhere] and already see studios relocating to Europe from London makes me believe the U.K. is going to suffer if access to such schemes as Creative Europe is lost.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 83
Feeling part of an international community
12.16Being a national member of the Creative Europe club was said by some respondents to be something that they would miss as membership brought benefits that would not easily be replicated. Membership benefits were mentioned by some in the context of the longer term nature of some projects that has created opportunities for longer term collaborations to be created and sustained. For several respondents this has led to longer term working on projects with people who have become friends.
… in a future where UK organisations will be "Third Country" partners, we will miss the closer connection, the support of the Creative Europe UK Desk, and the feeling of international cultural collaboration - so we'll miss everything
We will lose the opportunity to innovate - CE was the only source of development support that allowed us to develop innovative content to take to the market, and we will - as has already started to happen - have our opportunities to co-produce significantly reduced. This isn't just due to the lack of financing available, but is due to a perception from the rest of our European partners that we are somehow "out of the club" and that perception (whether right or wrong) co-production is not as easy with the UK anymore. For us, it is nothing short of a disaster.
We will miss the friends we have made… a sense of comradeship
Networking with European colleagues is a core element of our activity. Without this, we will lose opportunities to develop new ideas, work on projects with international partners and help our staff to meet and exchange ideas with similar organisations in other European countries. We will miss our European friends.
Creative Europe's support has enabled us to truly work in partnership, to develop a communal vision with likeminded, innovative European groups - that sense of wide mission and legacy has been really stimulating. It has also enabled us to lead the sector on an international level and while we hope to continue to build the resulting Network, the initial 'creating something new' was an energy we'll no doubt miss.
Connectivity
12.17Finally, some respondents wrote about missing the multi-dimensional aspects of Creative Europe. One respondent summed this up as follows:
We will miss the connection with European partners on projects of shared regional importance. We'll miss what these partnerships afforded us: support to realise ambitious, value-driven projects, shared expertise, opportunities for artists and cultural workers, financing for daring work and for international travel. Creative Europe had an enormously positive impact on [our organisation]. Without this opportunity for funding, growth, networking and exchange, our ability to commission and present international artists has become much more difficult, as has how we promote internationalism to audiences.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-1
Survey analysis and results
A.1 The surveys may have been subject to respondent bias suggesting that those who responded may have been more favourably, or less favourably disposed to the programme than a typical respondent. This is the case with most self-completion opt-in surveys. An additional factor that might have affected survey results is that it was running when many respondents were on furlough due to the COIVD-19 pandemic, and this may have affected the respondent profile.
A.2 The 25% response rate provides a good indication of range and scale of impact. Because different questions were posed to different sub-groups of respondents the size of the survey population changes for different questions. Assuming that one would expect a normal distribution of responses the confidence interval for survey responses would range from +/- 1.3 to +/-6.5. This means that we can be confident that the answers to questions would at worst range from 6.5 more percentage points or 6.5 less than the reported answer. We consider that this gives a good indication of range and scale of impact but cannot extrapolate results across the whole population. We do not therefore scale up the number of jobs reported in the survey to suggest what might have been the impact across the whole population.
A.3 For completeness, this Annex presents results from the survey that are not reported in the main text.
Respondent characteristics
Table A-1: Region/country of respondents Culture MEDIA Creative Europe Region/country Count % Count % Count % London 19 26% 50 51% 69 41% Scotland 14 19% 6 6% 20 12% South West 6 8% 8 8% 14 8% Yorkshire and the Humber 5 7% 8 8% 13 8% Northern Ireland 4 6% 8 8% 12 7% North West 10 14% 2 2% 12 7% South East 5 7% 5 5% 10 6% Wales 4 6% 1 1% 5 3% East Midlands 1 1% 3 3% 4 2% West Midlands 2 3% 2 2% 4 2% East 1 1% 2 2% 3 2% North East 1 1% 2 2% 3 2% I'm not based in the UK 0 0% 1 1% 1 1% Total 72 100% 98 100% 170 100% Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-2
Figure A-1: Number of people employed in the respondent’s organisation
37% 35%
28% 27%
21%
17% 14% 14% 13%14% 11% 9% 9% 8% 6% 6% 6% 5% 3% 3%3%3% 3% 3% 2% 0% 1%
1 2-4 5-9 10-19 20-49 50-99 100-249 250-499 500+
Culture (n=72) MEDIA (n=98) Creative Europe (n=170)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Figure A-2: Organisation turnover in 2019/20
18% 17% 16% 14% 14% 15%14% 14% 12% 12% 12% 11% 11% 11% 10% 9% 8% 8% 8% 8% 8% 7% 7% 7% 6% 6% 4% 4% 2% 1% 1% 2% 0%
Culture (n=72) MEDIA (n=98) Creative Europe (n=170)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-3
Figure A-3: Year organisation was established
36% 34% 29% 26% 22% 22% 18% 20% 17% 17% 14%15% 10%9% 7%
1%0% 1%0% 1% 1%
Before 1990-1999 2000-2009 2010-2014 2015-2019 2020 Don’t 1990 know Culture (n=72) MEDIA (n=98) Creative Europe (n=170)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Table A-2: Culture only - organisation type Organisation type Count % (n=72) Non-governmental 14 19% organisation/association/socia l enterprise Festival 12 17% Theatre 12 17% Arts association 9 13% Art gallery 6 8% Dance company 5 7% Orchestra 4 6% Higher education institution 3 4% Music centre 3 4% Concert hall 2 3% Literature foundation 2 3% Local public body 1 1% Multimedia association 1 1% National public body 1 1% Research institute/centre 1 1% School/Institute/Educational 1 1% centre (General education) Street art association 1 1% Other 19 26% Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-4
Table A-3: Culture only - organisation art-form Art form Count % (n=72) Theatre/performance art 21 29% Music/Opera 11 15% Dance 10 14% Digital arts 7 10% Film/Video 7 10% Circus art 6 8% Craftwork 6 8% Photography 5 7% Sculpture 5 7% Street art 5 7% Intangible culture 4 6% Literature 4 6% Visual arts 4 6% Decorative arts 3 4% Graphic arts 2 3% Graphic design 2 3% Painting/drawing 2 3% Fashion design 1 1% Puppetry 1 1% Tangible culture - Historical 1 1% sites and buildings Other 17 24% Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Table A-4: Culture only - Respondent role Respondent role Count % (n=72) Management 29 40% Artistic/creative 19 26% Development/fundraising 8 11% Programming 8 11% Curatorial 2 3% Producer 3 4% Education 1 1% Technical 1 1% Finance 1 1% Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-5
Table A-5: MEDIA only - Organisation type / respondent role Organisation type / Count % (n=98) respondent role Production Company 52 53% Cinema / Exhibitor 7 7% Video Game Developer 6 6% Distributor 5 5% Film Education / Film Literacy 5 5% Training Provider 4 4% Festival 3 3% International Sales Agent 3 3% Online Distributor (VOD) 3 3% Director 2 2% Market Organiser 2 2% Children's Publisher 1 1% Cultural Organiser 1 1% Distributor, Exhibitor and 1 1% Online Distributor (VOD) Lawyer 1 1% Screen Agency 1 1% Video Streaming Platform 1 1% Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Table A-6: MEDIA only - type of media Media type Count % (n=98) Film 67 68% Documentary 45 46% TV 42 43% Fiction 40 41% Animation 36 37% Online 24 24% Interactive / Immersive 17 17% Video Games 13 13% Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Table A-7: Participation in other EU programmes Culture (n=69) MEDIA (n=98) Creative Europe Region/country (n=167) Count % Count % Count % Erasmus+ 13 19% 1 1% 14 8%
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-6
Culture (n=69) MEDIA (n=98) Creative Europe Region/country (n=167) Count % Count % Count % ERDF 8 12% 4 4% 12 7% Horizon 2020 6 9% 2 2% 8 5% Interreg 6 9% 1 1% 7 4% LEADER 3 4% 1 1% 4 2% ESIF 2 3% 1 1% 3 2% PEACE 1 1% 1 1% 2 1% Any 20 29% 8 8% 28 17% Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Engagement with Creative Europe
Figure A-4: Proportion of respondents that had engaged with each scheme (Culture and MEDIA are considered separately)
Cooperation project(s) 83% Network - member 25% Network - lead 14% Platform - member 13% i-Portunus 11% Platform - lead 4% Music Moves Europe 3% Literary translations 3% CE-funded market/event attendee 67% Training course attendee 51% Development: Single Project or Slate 36% TV Programming 16% Access to Markets 14% Distribution (Automatic or Selective) 8% Video Games 6% Training (delivery of training) 6% Film Festivals 5% Film Education 5% Europa Cinemas 5% Distribution: VOD Platforms 4% Audience Development: Film Literacy 4% Distribution: Sales Agents 2% Distribution: Innovative strategies and online tools 2%
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-7
Table A-8: Number of schemes engaged with Culture (n=72) MEDIA (n=98) Creative Europe Region/country (n=170) Count % Count % Count % 1 42 58% 15 15% 57 34% 2 22 31% 19 19% 41 24% 3 6 8% 30 31% 3621% 4 2 3% 26 27% 28 16% 5 0 0% 6 6% 6 4% 6 0 0% 2 2% 2 1% Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Figure A-5: Motivation for participating in Creative Europe
78% To develop new partnerships/networks 69% 90% 65% Raise finance for my project 73% 52% 62% Develop new ways of working 48% 83% 62% Take risks and innovate 53% 74% Increase opportunities for artists & professionals 61% 44% we work with to operate / move across borders 86% 60% Develop new knowledge & skills 52% 72% 57% To strengthen existing partnerships/networks 50% 67% Increase opportunities for staff to operate / 54% 44% move across borders 68% 47% Find new audiences 44% 52% Seeking to address common European 43% 31% challenges 61% To increase the diversity of our organisation’s 41% 33% programming/offer 52% 32% Deepen connections with existing audiences 27% 41% 32% To increase existing audiences 36% 28% 28% Leverage other international funding 37% 16% 27% Leverage other national funding 30% 23% 11% Safeguard creative control of my project(s) 16% 4%
Creative Europe (n=167) MEDIA (n=98) Culture (n=69)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-8
Financial and economic impact
Figure A-6: Proportion of grant received by respondent where projects had co- beneficiaries
29%
19% 15% 14% 14% 14% 14% 14% 12% 10% 10% 7% 7% 5% 5% 3% 3% 2% 2% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
Culture (n=59) MEDIA (n=7)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries of most MEDIA schemes were not asked this question.
A.4 As some had received funding for multiple projects, this analysis is value of projects/grants per organisation rather than per project.
Table A-9: Value of supported projects and grants per organisation Culture MEDIA Creative Europe Value of projects Total value £178.6m £212.4m £390,976,756 Mean value £3.0m £3.2m £3.1m Median value £399k £498k £400k Value of grants Total value £87.2m £17.3m £104.6m Mean value £1.5m £280k £864k Median value £200k £167k £200k Grant value as % Total value 49% 8% 27% of total project Mean value 50% 9% 28% value Median value 50% 34% 50% Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries who had attended training only were not asked this question.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-9
Table A-10: Culture only - Source of match funding Rest of Unsure Rest of Any Source of match funding UK the of Europe location world location Arts Council England 49% - - - 49% Earned income (including ticket sales, other 36% 8% 0% 2% 46% trading) Own investment 36% 8% 0% 0% 44% Trusts/foundations 34% 7% 0% 0% 41% Other national agencies/public funding 14% 22% 0% 2% 37% bodies Local Authority/local funding 29% 8% 0% 0% 37% Corporate funding/sponsorship 19% 2% 3% 0% 24% Creative Scotland 14% - - - 14% Philanthropic/individual giving/major 12% 3% 2% 0% 14% donors Arts Council of Wales 8% - - - 8% Lottery funding (including Heritage Lottery 8% 0% 0% 0% 8% Fund) Arts Council of Northern Ireland 7% - - - 7% Crowdfunding 5% 2% 0% 0% 7% Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Note that the columns may not sum up to the last column as respondents may have selected the source multiple times for different areas.
Table A-11: MEDIA only - Source of match funding Rest of Unsure Rest of Any Source of match funding UK the of Europe location world location Own investment 56% 2% 0% 0% 57% National agencies/public funding bodies 26% 13% 3% 2% 44% Co-Producer 8% 30% 5% 0% 43% Broadcaster / Streamer 21% 10% 8% 0% 39% Tax credit 26% 3% 2% 0% 31% Distributor/sales agent 10% 10% 8% 2% 30% Trusts/foundations 11% 7% 7% 0% 25% Third party investment 11% 5% 7% 0% 23% Earned income (e. g. participant fees or ticket 13% 3% 3% 2% 21% sales) Corporate funding/sponsorship 13% 2% 3% 0% 18% Lottery funding (including Heritage Lottery 16% 2% 0% 0% 18% Fund) Local Authority/local funding 11% 3% 0% 2% 16%
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-10
Rest of Unsure Rest of Any Source of match funding UK the of Europe location world location Philanthropic/individual giving/major 3% 0% 5% 0% 8% donors Crowdfunding 3% 0% 2% 0% 5% Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Note that the columns may not sum up to the last column as respondents may have selected the source multiple times for different areas. Europa Network respondents were not asked this question.
Impact on audiences and cultural development
Figure A-7: Has your involvement in Creative Europe enabled your organisation to reach different audiences71
No or N/A 29% 27% 44% 41% 56% 51%
Both 40% 44% 34% 35% 27% 31% 21% 19% 12% 13% 16% Physical settings 5% and/or traditional 10% 8% 9% 10% 9% 9% media Culture MEDIA Creative Culture MEDIA Creative (n=62) (n=78) Europe (n=62) (n=78) Europe Online/using digital (n=140) (n=140) technology Reach different types of Reach different types of audiences internationally audiences in the UK
Source: Creative Europe impact survey.
71 As above
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-11
Impact on knowledge, skills and capacity
Figure A-8: Did drawing on international learning and experience add value?
58% 37% 46%
24% 25% 27% 26% 13% 20% Culture (n=64) MEDIA (n=78) Creative Europe (n=142)
Yes, a little Yes, moderately Yes, a lot No No answer
Annex B: Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries of the Distribution (automatic/selective) scheme were not asked this question.
Figure A-9: Culture only - To what extent has your involvement in Creative Europe benefitted your organisation’s skills, knowledge and/or capacity in relation to the following?
Creativity 14% 38% 40%
Industry/sector knowledge 23% 29% 37%
Audience development 22% 40% 26%
Project management & admin 18% 45% 23%
Working practices 22% 49% 15%
Research 34% 28% 25%
Accessing international markets 12% 29% 43%
Development 14% 43% 28%
Raising finance 26% 43% 12%
Production 26% 31% 20%
Specialist technical 40% 18% 15%
Utilising digital technology 26% 26% 20%
Marketing 32% 29% 9%
Working with community groups 25% 25% 15%
Business management & practice 29% 32% 3%
Entrepreneurship 29% 25% 5% A little Moderately A lot
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-12
Figure A-10: MEDIA only - To what extent has your involvement in Creative Europe benefitted your organisation’s skills, knowledge and/or capacity in relation to the following?
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-13
Figure A-11: Culture only - To what extent has your involvement in Creative Europe benefitted your organisation’s skills, knowledge and/or capacity in relation to the following?
Your ability to lead on partnerships 6%22% 69%
Your ability to set up partnerships 8%20% 65%
Your ability to engage in international 9% 28% 54% markets
Your ability to engage in international 26% 38% 25% collaboration
Understanding of professional practice 11% 28% 49% and working context in other countries
Your organisational strategies 17% 38% 32%
Your career progression 28% 35% 25%
Your employability 23% 37% 23%
A little Moderately A lot
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-14
Figure A-12: MEDIA only - To what extent has your involvement in Creative Europe benefitted your organisation’s skills, knowledge and/or capacity in relation to the following?
Your ability to lead on partnerships 6%22% 69%
Your ability to set up partnerships 8%20% 65%
Your ability to engage in international 9% 28% 54% markets
Your ability to engage in international 26% 38% 25% collaboration
Understanding of professional practice 11% 28% 49% and working context in other countries
Your organisational strategies 17% 38% 32%
Your career progression 28% 35% 25%
Your employability 23% 37% 23%
A little Moderately A lot
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK A-15
Figure 12-2: Projects included a focus on participation in culture and education for the following groups
63% Young people 53% 68% 34% Women 35% 34% 33% BAME people 26% 37% 27% Deprived communities 18% 32% 26% People with disabilities 26% 26% 22% Migrants 18% 24% 21% LGBT+ people 26% 18% 17% Refugees 15% 18% 13% Elderly people 15% 11% 11% Unemployed 12% 11% 3% Homeless 3% 3% 2% Religious groups 6% 0% Creative Europe (n=96) MEDIA (n=34) Culture (n=62)
Source: Creative Europe impact survey. Beneficiaries of the Distribution (automatic/selective), Distribution: Sales Agents, Development and TV Programming schemes and those who had only attended training were not asked this question.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 16
Scheme specific
Table A-12: Specific questions for Access to Markets scheme beneficiaries
Access to Deliver an Deliver an Add an Make the Ensure Markets event which event on a international event more participation you would not scale you dimension affordable of expert otherwise be would not that otherwise for industry able to offer otherwise would not be participant practitioners be able to on offer s (buyers, offer financiers, broadcasters) No 0% 0% 0% 7% 0% A little 21% 7% 0% 0% 0% Yes, 14% 21% 29% 14% 36% moderately Yes, a lot 29% 36% 36% 43% 29% - 36% 36% 36% 36% 36% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% /Scheme n= 14 14 14 14 14 Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Table A-13: Specific questions for Audience development scheme beneficiaries Audience Increase Export a Establish a Expand an Use Programme Develop the successful new joint existing digital non-UK ment audience of film cross joint cross promotio European (Action 1: an existing education border film border film nal tools films on Film film initiative education education to distribution Literacy) education initiative initiative develop platform(s) & Film initiative young for young Education audiences audiences - combined No 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 14% A little 14% 0% 0% 14% 0% 0% Yes, 0% 29% 14% 14% 43% 14% moderatel y Yes, a lot 57% 57% 86% 57% 43% 71% - 29% 14% 0% 14% 14% 0% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% n= 7 7 7 7 7 7 Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 17
Table A-14: Specific questions for Distribution development scheme beneficiaries Distribut Increase Acquire Boost Offer Collaborate with Compete ors the size of a more non- your Minimum distributors in with other film’s UK marketin Guarante other territories to distributor release European g spend es release the same s in your films on films title territory No 11% 11% 11% 22% 22% 22% A little 0% 11% 11% 11% 11% 22% Yes, 33% 22% 22% 11% 44% 33% moderatel y Yes, a lot 33% 33% 33% 11% 0% 0% - 22% 22% 22% 44% 22% 22% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% n= 9 9 9 9 9 9
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Table A-15: Specific questions for Online development scheme beneficiaries Online Increase Increase Enable Develop Establish a Collaborate (Action 1) the number the uptake experiment and deliver new VOD cross- and/or of your VOD ation and a marketing service border with visibility of service by innovative campaign other VOD non-UK audiences release for your services European strategies VOD service audiovisual works on VOD services No 0% 0% 0% 0% 75% 25% A little 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 50% Yes, 0% 50% 50% 25% 0% 0% moderatel y Yes, a lot 100% 50% 50% 75% 25% 25% - 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% n= 4 4 4 4 4 4 Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 18
Table A-16: Specific questions for Development / Slate scheme beneficiaries Development: Improve the Maximise the Get your Work with Find partners Single Project quality of the international supported established for your or Slate script/animat market projects into writing/direc projects ion bible potential of production ting talent your project No 6% 0% 14% 17% 9% A little 9% 9% 11% 9% 17% Yes, 17% 23% 17% 26% 23% moderately Yes, a lot 60% 63% 46% 40% 43% - 9% 6% 11% 9% 9% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% n= 35 35 35 35 35
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Table A-17: Specific questions for Europa cinema network scheme beneficiaries Europa Increase the Organise Attend Apply Be Cinemas number of activity for innovation learnings represented screenings for young labs, from other as a sector, European audiences conferences European with a shared films and/or cinemas to voice able to exchanges your raise with other operations awareness of European issues among cinemas policy makers No 0% 0% 20% 20% 0% A little 0% 80% 20% 20% 40% Yes, 80% 20% 20% 20% 0% moderately Yes, a lot 20% 0% 40% 20% 40% - 0% 0% 0% 20% 20% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% n= 5 5 5 5 5 Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 19
Table A-18: Specific questions for Film festival scheme beneficiaries Film Increase Increase Increase Increase the Augment Make the Cooperate Festival festival the the number of the festival with s audience number number industry festival’s more other of non-UK of professionals all-year- financiall festivals European creative attending the round y viable titles talent festival offer to screened attending local at the the audiences festival festival No 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% A little 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Yes, 20% 0% 0% 0% 40% 60% 20% moderat ely Yes, a lot 40% 40% 40% 40% 0% 0% 20% - 40% 60% 60% 60% 60% 40% 60% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% n= 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Table A-19: Specific questions for Training scheme beneficiaries Trainin Deliver Deliver Add an Make the Offer Run an Draw on g training training internatio training formal alumni the which you on a scale nal more networki network participat would not you dimension affordable ng ion of otherwise would not that for opportuni expert be able to otherwise otherwise participan ties for industry offer be able to would not ts participa practition offer be on offer nts ers No 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% A little 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% Yes, 17% 17% 17% 17% 17% 17% 17% moderat ely Yes, a lot 50% 50% 50% 50% 50% 50% 50% - 33% 33% 33% 33% 33% 33% 33% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% n= 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK 20
Table A-20: Specific questions for TV Programming development scheme beneficiaries TV Increase the Complete Increase Co-produce Attract Programmi number of sales the production with a interest from ng of the financing values beyond production broadcasters programme by necessary the usual company in and other co- maximising the to enter broadcaster another producers international into tariffs country market potential production for your project No 18% 12% 6% 47% 18% A little 6% 0% 18% 0% 0% Yes, 18% 18% 6% 18% 12% moderately Yes, a lot 47% 59% 59% 18% 53% - 12% 12% 12% 18% 18% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% n= 17 17 17 17 17 Source: Creative Europe impact survey
Table A-21: Specific questions for Video Games development scheme beneficiaries Video Games Improve the Maximise the Move from the Find partners quality of your international protoyping stage (including prototype market potential to the production publishers) for of your project stage of the your projects project No 0% 0% 0% 0% A little 0% 33% 0% 0% Yes, moderately 0% 17% 33% 33% Yes, a lot 100% 50% 67% 67% - 0% 0% 0% 0% Total 100% 100% 100% 100% n= 6 6 6 6 Source: Creative Europe impact survey
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK B-1
Research methods
Research Brief
B.1 This annex presents the research methods that were applied to collate new data to update the 2018 impact assessment of Creative Europe in the UK. The research brief presented the overarching research question as follows:
“What is the evidence and strength of evidence base of the impact of Creative Europe from 2014 until 2020 and in particular its two sub-programmes MEDIA and Culture, in the UK, according to the headings and sub-headings defined in the Evaluation Framework 2018.”
B.2 It then presented a set of research objectives:
Review and update if necessary, the impact framework on page 9 of the Creative Europe in the UK report. (2018)
Advise on the scope and questions for the Creative Europe Desk UK 2020 survey: a follow up to the 2017 Creative Europe Desk UK user survey which would connect to a new impacts report, possibly even allow new metrics and indicators to be used
Review the evidence and strength of evidence for impacts identified in the Creative Europe in UK report (2018) taking into account further three years of the implementation of Creative Europe in the UK since the report
Assess the impact of the previous impact report - was it useful, did it have any influence?
Under the economic impact aspect of the impacts framework we would like to explore further the cost-effectiveness of the programme especially when compared with any potential domestic alternative.
SQW Approach
B.3 SQW used the framework developed for the 2018 Interim impact assessment of Creative Europe in the UK (see Figure B-1). The framework was well-known by stakeholders and was reported to have been favourably received by the European Commission. The framework was adapted by SQW with further clarification and elaboration within each of the six domains to articulate the types of impact that might accrue from Creative Europe, the routes to impact and potential ways to measure impact. These were presented in Section 4 of the full report.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK B-2
B.4 The research was also informed by the European Commissions logic model, reproduced in Figure B-1.
Figure B-1: Creative Europe programme intervention logic
Source: European Commission (2018) Mid-Term Evaluation https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=SWD:2018:159:FIN
B.5 SQW’s research process consisted of four stages; inception, impact framework, data analysis, and reporting. SQW obtained new data through:
Supporting the design of the Creative Europe programme user survey. The survey was co- designed with the steering group, and distributed and publicised by Creative Europe Desk UK. It was hosted by SQW and data collected through the survey was analysed by SQW. Information about the survey is provided in Section 2 of the full report.
Interviews with key stakeholders to support the review of the evaluation framework and the interpretation of survey results
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK B-3
Interviews with projects with a focus on providing further detail regarding specific issues arising from survey results
Document review of evaluation evidence (in English) provided by interviewees and survey respondents.
Interviews
B.6 A series of scoping interviews was held during May and June. These included representatives from the following organisations:
British Council
Department of Culture, Media and Sport (UK)
British Film Institute
Arts Council England
Welsh Government
Creative Scotland
British Council, Northern Ireland
Film Distributors’ Association (FDA)
Film Export UK
Cinema Exhibitors
IETM International network for contemporary performing arts
D6
What next?
B.7 These interviews shaped the design of the survey tools, provided context for the study, identified key resources and informed the analysis and reporting. Further interviews were held with funded projects following the survey analysis phase to provide further clarification of key data returns or to request examples of impact arising from the survey findings.
B.8 In addition, Creative Europe Desk UK contacted key projects to provide further examples of impact to be featured as cases in the report.
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK
0 2 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0
No. projects No.
0 3 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 Cross-sector . partners . The Impact of Creative Europe in the UKthe Creative Europe ofin The Impact No
8 5 8 2 8 4 9 8 9 3 6 3 27 21 20 16 11 12
No. projects No.
5 8 2 8 4 8 9 3 6 3 MEDIA 35 53 17 11 16 12 12 118 No. partners No.
77 84 80 70 57 51 32 36 32 40 31 31 24 29 26 27 23 26
No. projects No.
94 80 77 56 36 39 38 43 33 37 28 31 28 33 25 27 Culture 102 114 No. partners No.
87 65 57 43 48 40 42 39 35 33 38 36 30 29 29 104 107 102 No. projects No.
98 62 51 45 41 40 36 30 152 Creative Europe Europe Creative No. partners No. Partner countries Partner : Number of partners and projects with partner countries by country country by countries partner with projects and of partners Number : C-1 rne 220 149 88 52 France Italy 46 Germany Spain 41 Belgium Netherlands 40 Austria Poland 38 Portugal Slovenia Ireland 31 Norway Denmark Sweden Finland Croatia Republic Czech Greece C-1 C-1 Table Table
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
No. projects No.
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Cross-sector . partners . The Impact of Creative Europe in the UKthe Creative Europe ofin The Impact No
4 2 1 2 5 6 0 2 1 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
No. projects No.
4 2 1 2 5 6 0 2 1 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 MEDIA https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/projects/ No. partners No.
8 8 8 9 2 6 6 5 3 2 2 2 2 1 23 23 20 19 13 14
No. projects No.
9 8 9 9 2 6 6 5 3 2 2 2 2 1 24 24 21 20 14 14 Culture No. partners No.
9 9 6 6 6 5 3 2 2 2 2 1 27 25 21 21 18 14 14 10 No. projects No.
9 6 5 2 2 1 26 22 15 10 Creative Europe Europe Creative Source: European Commission. Creative Europe Project Results data [Accessed August 2020) 2020) August [Accessed data Results Project Europe Creative Commission. European Source: No. partners No. eba 28 22 19 14 Serbia Romania 10 Hungary 6 Latvia Lithuania Iceland 6 Estonia 3 Cyprus Slovakia Bulgaria Georgia 2 Luxembourg Macedonia 2 Turkey Malta Albania Herzegovina & Bosnia Montenegro Ukraine Moldova C-2 C-2
D-1
Bibliography
Centre for Economics and Business Research (2019) Contribution of the arts and culture industry to the national economy. London. CEBR. Creative Europe Desk UK (2018) The impact of Creative Europe in the UK http://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/sites/default/files/CE_ImpactUK__FINAL.pdf CEDUK Results publications 2014-19 http://www.creativeeuropeuk.eu/publications DCMS (2020) DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dcms-sectors-economic-estimates-2019- employment Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (2019) Creative Europe Networks. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/1e4ce5f2-8508-11ea-bf12- 01aa75ed71a1/language-en Euclid (2017) EU Support 2007 - 2016. Arts Council England. https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download- file/Euclid_summary_BREXIT_Report.pdf European Union (2014) Report on the role of public arts and cultural institutions in the promotion of cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue 2011-2014. European Union European Institute for Comparative Cultural Research (2008) Mobility Matters: Programmes and Schemes to Support the Mobility of Artists and Cultural Professionals. European Commission (DG Education and Culture). European Commission (2013) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?qid=1408546810627&uri=CELEX:32013R1295 European Commission (2018) Creative Europe Monitoring Report https://creative- europe-desk.de/downloads/CreativeEurope_Monitoring_Report_2018.pdf European Commission (2019) Creative Europe Monitoring Report https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/f16e7fc0-ecc3-11ea-b3c6- 01aa75ed71a1/language-en European Commission (2018) Mid-term evaluation of the Creative Europe programme (2014-2020) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- content/EN/TXT/?qid=1525096559278&uri=COM:2018:248:FIN Kings College London (2017) The art of soft power. London. KCL. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/cultural/projects/2017/art-of-soft-power MacDonald, A. (2019) Sources of soft power How perceptions determine the success of nations. British Council. https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/sources-soft- power-report-perceptions-success.pdf
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK
D-2
Metro Dynamics (2020) The Impact of Arts & Culture on the wider Creative Economy. Arts Council England. https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download- file/Metro%20Dynamics%20-%20Arts%20and%20Culture%20Impact%20Report.pdf Oxford Economics (2012) The Economic Impact of the UK Film Industry. https://www2.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-economic-impact-of-the-uk- film-industry-2012-09-17.pdf Pact UK Television Census (2019) Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy (2015) Cultural and creative spillovers in Europe: Report on a preliminary evidence review. University of Edinburgh (undated) Soft Power Today – Measuring the Influences and Effects. Edinburgh. British Council. https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/3418_bc_edinburgh_university_soft_po wer_report_03b.pdf
The Impact of Creative Europe in the UK
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