Added value

General and specific objectives of the project

The project aims to foster rural economic and cultural valorisation, promoting innovative cultural and creative enterprise poles based on the partners’ cultural heritage and landscape values. The overall benefit of culture and heritage hubs is to allow communities with exceptional and unique assets, traditions and sites to exploit their potential for territorial planning and use regional assets to benefit the economy generally while ensuring their preservation in environmental terms. Investment, integrated management and system governance in cultural heritage would allow rural areas to diversify their economies, combat migration tendencies and preserve heritage for future generations harnessing its potential as a driver for prosperity.

Exchanging experiences and cluster cooperation through the project activities will strengthen decision-making, vision, governance and impact at local level. The mix of partners between territorial actors at different levels and public actors representing the business community will provide for experimentation and implementation at different levels of political decision making and economic planning, representing an added value and drawing inspiration from a cluster logic.

This will revitalise rural areas with significant historical and cultural heritage as well as valorise remarkable typical local material and immaterial products and landscape resources and encourage local entrepreneurship in cultural/creative sectors and in the provision of services and leisure activities.

Specific objectives will be achieved by:

• a collaborative network of partners to analyse potential cultural service poles and exchange of peer experience;
• analysis of criteria, needs and constraints for different types of cultural initiatives;
• capacity building for stakeholders on integrated quality management for cultural services;
• exchange of best practice to identify transferable sustainability models and marketing strategies for creative and cultural enterprise hubs;
• develop common strategies to foster innovative cultural services in rural areas;
• experimentation of shared services for stakeholders and identification of stakeholder partnership and cooperation;
• creation of cultural lasting partnerships/twinnings for international promotion.

Transnational added value of the project

Initially the transnational exchange of experience and expertise in developing an integrated and commonly-developed strategy for cultural heritage and service promotion in rural areas will enable each partner to improve their management of the system.

A stable network of public bodies linked to cultural stakeholders at local level will ensure widespread and committed participation in decision making and practical implementation by all those implicated in the outcome. The partnership will allow for maximum benefit from exchange and reinforce its impact, involving a mix of regional/local authorities and Chambers responsible for implementing economic development strategies with a specific sustainable rural agenda for diversification.

However, the main transnational value of the project lies in the joint development of solutions of transferable sustainable models and marketing strategies for innovative creative and cultural enterprise hubs. Transnational value will also be provided by the creation of cultural partnerships and twinnings for international promotion. This will allow rural areas to attract international tourism providing the key to more success in an increasingly competitive sector and enhancing the value of cultural resources into global markets that would otherwise be closed. These will contribute to the long-term sustainability of the jointly developed and transferable outputs.