Take part in Co-Learning Labs
If you would like to learn more about our Co-learning labs, want to host a lab yourself or propose a topic; please do not hesitate to get in touch raphaela.henze@hs-heilbronn.de.
We are excited to present a new monthly BIE Network event that we are calling the Co-learning Lab. Co-learning labs are laboratories of around an hour hosted by one of our members who will decide on a topic and provide a ten-minutes input, which will be followed by an open, informal learning session. We strongly hope that this offer will allow for in-depth discussion and mutual learning on topics that BIE Networkers in different parts of the world care about, but might otherwise not have a chance to discuss in more detail. In order to make this event easy for you to remember, we are trying to block the last Thursday of each month at 3 pm CET – but surely there will be exceptions to this rule so please mark your calendars accordingly and please register timely not later than 3 days prior to the lab. The labs will be Zoom conferences and registered participants will receive the link prior to the respective lab.
November 25, 2021 at 3 pm CET
“Intellectual Property Rights – the underestimated potential in cultural management”
Eventually, cultural managers are confronted with the issue of intellectual property rights. Even if many managers are meanwhile sensitised to the subject, it is still largely terra incognita and associated with many prejudices and fears: too complicated, there is hardly any advice, too expensive, too complex. This is a pity, because the management of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is not only important to secure rights to property, but can also provide right holders with a so-called “freedom to operate” and even with additional income.
IPRs such as trademarks, designs, copyrights or geographical indications enable European creative professionals and businesses in cultural management, cultural heritage as well as in cultural tourism to prevent unauthorized exploitation of their creations and to get compensation for their investment in return. IPR also offer guarantees to users, buyers and visitors to identify the origin of products and services.
So far, IPR generation has hardly been included in the curricula of formal cultural management education, simply because it is a subject that many teachers, trainers and learners shy away from. In the professional world very often, there is also a financial issue because legal advice for IPR can be expensive and can hardly be covered by smaller institutions. This is all the more regrettable because IPR cannot only protect rights, but can also be used to develop new business opportunities for those involved.
According to a study carried out for the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM), IPR – intensive industries generate nearly 30% of employment and almost 45% of economic activity in the EU with 22% in trade-mark-intensive industries, 14% in design-intensive industries, 11% in patent-intensive industries, 5.5% in copyright-intensive industries, and smaller proportions in Geographical Identification-intensive industries. Related to that, the European report “Access to Finance” states: “These figures are part of a growing evidence base showing that economic production is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Whereas in the industrial economy most investment was in tangible assets and tangibles were driving growth, in today’s creative economy intangible assets are the main objects of investment, sources of value and drivers of growth”.
This data alone makes it clear how important it is for cultural practitioners to address the issue of IPR. The European project LEARN-IP is the way to get there. Right-holders and asset owners need access to effective ways of protecting their values internationally for growth and competitiveness to avoid that the economic and social potential of IPR gets lost. They need skills to identify, protect, apply and valorise it. When their ideas, brands and products are pirated and counterfeited, expertise and jobs are affected. This is exactly where the LEARN-IP project comes in: an online training programme is currently developed by a European expert team to support cultural managers and cultural tourism actors with the effective use of digital technologies to check for compliance with IPR regulations.
The BIE lab will give a short introduction to the topic, present some good practices and reflect on opportunities from IPR management for cultural managers.
Host:
Dr Karin Drda-Kühn is the managing director of German Kultur und Arbeit e.V., a non-profit organisation specialising in European research and application projects in the fields of cultural heritage, cultural tourism and creative industries. The statutory task of Kultur und Arbeit is to identify new fields of work for cultural workers and to develop corresponding qualification offers. Karin is an art historian from education and currently coordinates the European projects HERITAGE-PRO, SKIVRE and LEARN-IP and is a partner in the projects CHARTER, HECTOR and ARCHEODANUBE. She works several times a year as an expert for the European Commission, e.g. for the “European Capital of Smart Cities” initiative. She has chaired various European initiatives and has worked since 2015 in the working groups “Skills, Training and Knowledge Transfer: Traditional and Emerging Heritage”, the “Participatory Governance of Cultural Heritage Brainstorming Session” and the “Structured Dialogue on Developing the Entrepreneurial and Innovation Potential of the Cultural and Creative Sectors” of the European Commission Directorate-General for Education and Culture: http://www.voiceofculture.eu/. Her current publications can be found here: https://kultur-und-arbeit.de/veroeffentlichungen
Suggested reading:
“IPR-Intensive Industries and Economic Performance in the European Union – Industry-Level Analysis Report”, September 2019, third edition. A joint project between the European Patent Office and the European Union Intellectual Property Office.
“Good Practice Report – Towards More Efficient Financial Ecosystems: Innovative Instruments to Facilitate for the Cultural and Creative Sectors (CCS)”, European Union 2016
Further Information: https://learn-ip.eu/
Please register until two days prior https://forms.gle/AEGdWfzVWwgCArqq5
October 28, 2021 at 3 pm CET
Sharing the Power and Getting Things Done – How Terra Nova Aims to Make Intercultural Theatre
Andrea Montgomery is a theatre director and playwright who will be joining us to speak about her experience of making intercultural theatre. She is Artistic Director of Terra Nova Productions, which she founded in 2007 as Northern Ireland’s only dedicated intercultural theatre company. The Company has dedicated itself to making the full plurality of Irish voices heard on stage, in audio artwork, and on film. Andrea will speak as a practitioner about the things she has learned in making this kind of work. She is keen to share how she manages power dynamics and value dissonance related to cultures coming together in the rehearsal room and on stage, and to hear about other’s practice and experience. She is also happy to discuss sustainability for marginalised organisations, and has recently commissioned research on equity in funding for migrant and visible minority artists in Northern Ireland. You can read more about her intercultural practice and ethics at https://www.terranovaproductions.net/what-we-do.
Host:
Andrea Montgomery is a bilingual, Delhi-born, Canadian theatre maker who set up Terra Nova, Ireland’s only dedicated intercultural theatre company, 14 years ago. She has worked with hundreds of artists and emerging artists from across the island of Ireland and the world, tirelessly striving for greater equity and fair access to professional opportunities in the Creative Industries. Her practice and methods feature in academic articles and books from Galway to Melbourne. A director with more than 65 productions to her name she is also a writer who has had multiple scripts produced for radio and stage. She has produced in the West End, run English and Northern Irish theatres, been a founder member of an Irish touring consortium and undertaken projects in Ireland, Greenland, Iran, Macau, Canada, Hong Kong and across the UK. She is comfortable working in other languages and frequently puts herself in artistic situations where she works through translators. She is a long time Shakespeare specialist who has also explored puppetry, devising, multilingual and site-specific work.