European Commission’s Creative Innovation Lab Program

Objectives

• The general objectives of the Programme are:
  • to safeguard, develop and promote European cultural and linguistic diversity and heritage;
  • to increase the competitiveness and the economic potential of the cultural and creative sectors, in particular the audiovisual sector.
• These goals are pursued through the following specific objectives:
  • enhancing artistic and cultural cooperation at the European level, in order to support the creation of European works and strengthen the economic, social and external dimensions and innovation and mobility in Europe’s cultural and creative sectors (CULTURE strand);
  • promoting the competitiveness, scalability, cooperation, innovation, and sustainability, including through mobility in the European audiovisual sector (MEDIA strand);
  • promoting policy cooperation and innovative actions supporting all strands of the Programme, promoting a diverse, independent and pluralistic media environment, and media literacy, thereby fostering freedom of artistic expression, intercultural dialogue and social inclusion (CROSS SECTORAL strand).

Themes and Priorities

• The Cross Sectoral strand shall support the ‘creative innovation lab’, which shall:
  • encourage new forms of creation at the crossroads between different cultural and creative sectors, for example through experimental approaches and the use of innovative technologies;
  • foster innovative cross-sectoral approaches and tools which shall, where possible, encompass multilingual and social dimensions to facilitate the distribution, promotion and monetisation of, and access to, culture and creativity, including cultural heritage.

Topics

• Projects must focus on one (or several) of the below topics:
  • Virtual Worlds as a new environment for the promotion of European content, audience renewal and competitiveness of European content industries;
  • Innovative Business Tools for production, financing, distribution or promotion enabled or enhanced by new technology (AI, big data, blockchain, Virtual Worlds, NFT, etc.), in particular:
  • Rights’ management and monetisation (including innovative bundled subscription offers to access diverse European cultural content from various existing European platforms), at the same time ensuring transparency and fair remuneration for creators and artists;
  • Data collection and analysis, with particular emphasis on prediction for content creation and audience development (including innovative cross-sectoral tools to improve the quality of the subscriber service and a better valorisation of European content offered by European online platforms);
  • “Greener” practices in order to lower the impact on the environment of the audiovisual and other cultural sectors in line with the Commission’s Green Deal and the New Bauhaus initiative.

Funding Information

• The estimated available call budget is EUR 7.482.102.

Duration

• Projects should not normally exceed 24 months.

Expected Impact

• Improve the competitiveness of the European audiovisual and other cultural and creative sectors: transparency, data collection and the appropriate use of artificial intelligence/big data, adaptation to the challenges and opportunities driven by the ongoing changes in those sectors;
• Improve the adaptation of the European audiovisual and other cultural and creative sectors to the opportunities offered by the development of virtual worlds (also called metaverse(s));
• Improve the production/financing and circulation of European audiovisual and cultural content in the digital age;
• Increase the visibility, discoverability, availability and diversity of European audiovisual and cultural content in the digital age;
• Increase the potential audience of European audiovisual and cultural content in the digital age;
• Accelerate the environmental transition of the European audiovisual, cultural and other creative sectors, in line with the priorities of the European Green Deal and the New European Bauhaus.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible participants (eligible countries)
  • In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
    • be legal entities (public or private bodies)
    • be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
      • Creative Europe Participating Countries:
        • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
        • Non-EU countries:
          • listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Creative Europe Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature.
• Specific cases
  • Natural persons — Natural persons are not eligible (with the exception of selfemployed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person.
  • International organisations — International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.
  • Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons.
  • EU bodies — EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) cannot be part of the consortium.

For more information, visit EC.