Global FemArt – Supporting Female Artists and Creatives to Globalise their Business Erasmus Project

Project Title

Global FemArt – Supporting Female Artists and Creatives to Globalise their Business

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 vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Gender equality / equal opportunities; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

EU Creative and Cultural Industries have seen enormous growth over the past 5-10 years and form a large part of the economy; the EC estimates that CCIs contribute over 3% to the EU’s GDP and jobs. However, there is a continuous entrepreneurial skills gap and a strong lack of female representation in many creative fields, leading to the undervaluation of the importance of art to our global economy and keeping alive a level of deeply rooted inequality between men and women. Female artists and creatives are underrepresented in the creative commercial markets, in award shows and in the creative industries as a whole.
When it comes to the representation of women in CCIs, 2 main issues were identified that were visible across all EU-countries in general and across the project partner countries in particular:
1. a broad entrepreneurial skills gap between CCIs and the European business world;
2. specific challenges faced by women running CCIs that further lower their opportunities of international business growth and development.
The project aimed to address both, by specifically targeting female artists and creatives in order to develop specific support for their entrepreneurial development through a holistic programme combining (online) training and mentoring. The training programme enabled female artists and creatives to increase their knowledge on how to run and develop a creative business as well as to strengthen their self-confidence and self-efficacy. The Global FemArt project enabled female artists and creatives to take the next step with their business, encouraging them to move towards more globalised trade in line with the EU 2020 Strategy for Growth and Jobs which aimed to build a cultural sector ‘able to increasingly contribute to employment and growth across Europe’.
5 partners developed a special dual training methodology combining online (Global FemArt Academy) and face-to-face/online (Artist Circles™) learning that was fully job transcendent and could be applied in any type of creative sector. This programme was tested over 2 pilots with 107 female artists/creatives being directly trained across Europe.
The combination of an on- and offline dimension brought a flexible approach to participants’ learning (eLearning has previously proven to increase information retention rates by up to 60% – The Research Institute of America) while still taking into account specific and individual needs of each participant. This increased the positive and beneficial outcomes for learners, expected to improve retention rates, and lead to a greater likelihood they acquired the confidence to continue the path of self-employment and global business growth. Due to Covid-19, the face-to-face capacity of the project was reduced; however, the partnership was successful in implementing activities fully online, whilst still providing participants with the necessary tools and support which was provided during the initial piloting.
Global FemArt goes beyond mere theoretical transmission of information; it allows participants to put into practice all that they have learned via the Global FemArt Learning and Networking Platform. Here, the ‘Global’ in Global FemArt truly comes to life: platform registrants are able to create a personal profile, communicate with other platform users via comments, share their stories, websites and handles via their bio, present their work and sell their products/services to others, and find inspiration in the stories and work of other female artists and creatives.
As gender equality is a two-way street, Global FemArt not only empowered more women to set up and grow their creative businesses, but also grabbed every opportunity to raise awareness of the issue on a regional to global scale throughout the project’s lifetime. These efforts culminated in an additional guidebook, demonstrating the importance of policies and programmes to build and sustain creative businesses across the EU and beyond.
The Global FemArt project aimed to be an all-inclusive project where everyone could play a role in fighting gender inequalities. The materials produced and platform developed, are available for free and therefore accessible to not only the target group, but also other relevant stakeholders and interested parties looking to learn about CCIs, female entrepreneurship and the gender inequality within the sector.
The Global FemArt project achieved broad, and most importantly, twofold impact:
1. Female artists and creatives (either having been directly involved or indirectly inspired by previous participants) are more aware of their abilities to run a creative business, enjoying a strong growth in self-confidence and self-efficacy, and exploring internationalising and globalising actions for further business expansion.
2. The creative industries have an increased awareness of the existing gender inequalities, feel encouraged to combat these and will actively push towards becoming a truly inclusive area of work

Project Website

https://globalfemart.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 220507,4 Eur

Project Coordinator

INOVA CONSULTANCY LTD & Country: UK

Project Partners

• INSTALOFI LEVANTE SL
• Fundacja ARTeria
• CONSORZIO MATERAHUB INDUSTRIE CULTURALI E CREATIVE
• ODISEE