Accessible Culture and Training Erasmus Project

Project Title

Accessible Culture and Training

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

Accessibility plays a major role in modern knowledge-based Information societies. The potential of Accessibility through ICT and Assistive Technologies (AT) for inclusion and participation of all citizens is increasingly growing allowing for a full integration in everyday life. The proportion of people depending on Accessibility (15% in 2013) increases and EU demography shows the growing tendency to eAccessiblity dependency for its ageing population. National as well as European legislation supporting eAccessibility is in place and the UN-Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the most powerful, global expression in support of Inclusion and Equality, has a clear focus on eAccessibility, AT and Design for All. Media Accessibility has long been a critical issue in the EU culture sector, and EC has funded many projects regarding creation and distribution of eAccessibility. The time has come to establish the new professional profile of media accessibility expert/manager, and its training. Full participation of all citizens in cultural events – as end users or participants – should become part of their daily life as for people without disabilities, restoring the concept of equal opportunity and Human Right of access to culture.

The project ACT proposed the definition of a new professional profile, that of the “Media Accessibility Expert/Manager for the Scenic Arts”, and also the various types of training activities associated to this professional. The project proposed a multisectorial team, pooling on expertise and working in a common practical project to draw the skills, competences and learning materials required. The project had a balanced participation of four universities, two theaters, two Dep. Culture in local Government, and one European quality agency.

The first step was to profile accessibility issues for the events and users. In other words, an analysis of specificities of various cultural venues when wanting to implement an active cultural accessibility policy in the field of live and dynamic scenic arts, and also an analysis of the various user profiles accessing and taking part in these venues. Profiling was done in all four countries and with many users This transnational analysis, in which various languages, genres, technologies and venues was considered also to strengthen cooperation between organisations in different but complementary sectors that exchanged best practices. Simultaneously, an intensive dialogue with the authorities was opened to discuss the best way to implement accessibility policies in the scenic arts, focusing on Catalonia and Flanders but extrapolating its results to other scenarios. Cooperation between regional authorities was fostered and strengthened.

The main competences and skills of this new professional profile, along with its denomination, was discussed and agreed upon by the various stakeholders: HEIs, drama experts, scenic venue managers, department of culture in two governmental associations, a quality certification agency, and end users.

An open learning proposal, more specifically a MOOC was developed and is currently on offer with over 200 students to date (October 2018). ACT fostered recognition and validation of knowledge, skills and competences acquired through this open learning. Before its launching, the MOOC was designed, tested in a pilot course and disseminated in dedicated workshops.

Additionally, an accredited learning curriculum was designed for future implementation in the HEIs partners. Special emphasis was put on the permeability of others types of learning with formal education pathways.

The project focused on promoting equal opportunities and accessibility to cultural events (scenic arts) across countries and languages searching to establish and qualify the profile of accessibility expert to empower all citizens and especially people with disabilities. The project was carried out transnationally since EU countries have a wealth of languages, language situations (bilingual, trilingual, monolingual) and translation traditions (subtitling, dubbing, voice-over) where cultural representations will take place. There is a need to develop pan-European quality training and certification to guarantee a common professional profile across Europe and open new jobs. Designing and implementing the accessibility plans of a cultural venue should be the task of a well-trained professional able to work in a multilingual Europe aware of the cultural especificities along venues/users and the requirements of the different policies.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 314223 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• ECQA
• UNIVERSITAT WIEN
• TRANSIT PROJECTES
• UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN
• NTGENT
• THE QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY OF BELFAST
• Agentschap Toegankelijk Vlaanderen, private stichting