Bridging the Creativity Gap Erasmus Project

Project Title

Bridging the Creativity Gap

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The creative sector is an important actor for the development of societies, economy and emerging futures. Important components of this growth have been advertising, visual communications and design. According to an independent study by Deloitte (Value of Advertising, 2017), every Euro spent on advertising approximately adds seven euro to the GDP. The EUR 92 billion spent on advertising in 2014 in the EU contributed EUR 643 billion to the GDP, representing 4.6% of the overall EU GDP. Additionally, there are as many as six million jobs in advertising in the EU, equivalent to 2.6% of all EU employment.

Creativity is also becoming increasingly valued by people across commercial sectors, with research led businesses such as McKinsey finding strong correlation between creativity and financial performance (Mckinsey: Creativity’s Bottom Line, 2017). With digital and mobile technologies becoming an increasingly important facet of modern life, it is necessary to ensure that the skills taught in education match the pace of innovation.

Among various European stakeholders, there is great concern on the need to address the gap between the changing needs of the industry and the availability of a highly skilled workforce at the EU level. This challenge is widely described in policy documents such as the Digital Education Action Plan, the report on a coherent EU policy for cultural and creative industries, A new skills agenda for Europe, the Council Recommendations on key competences for lifelong learning or A new European Agenda for Culture, among many others.

On the industry’s side, each year D&AD uses the insight that it gets from the 20,000 pieces of work entered into its professional awards along with the thousands of student award entries to identify the gap between what is taught in universities and colleges and the skills required by the creative industry.

Drawn on a detailed analysis of needs from D&AD and Art Directors Club of Europe (ADCE), Bridging the Creativity Gap will focus on skills such as Storytelling, Ideation & Critical thought, Prototyping, Craft, Digital (UX, UI) for the following targeted audiences:

The student: those studying – advertising, branding, visual communications, graphic design, service design, product design, interactive design, UX and UI – and the emerging creatives entering the market, with and without professional experience.
The tutor: those teaching the above-stated subjects both in VET and Higher Education as well as in-company tutors for the creative industry.

In Bridging the Creativity Gap, D&AD, ADCE, Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia | Fab Lab Barcelona (IAAC), KERSNIKOVA Institute | Rampa and University of Oulu will partner to attain the following objectives:

(1) To produce a Learning Curriculum encompassing those skills demanded by the creative industry to enable the prosperous incorporation into the industry and career development.

(2) To explore a global-local framework for shifting the content of learning and the mechanisms by which it is delivered to more closely mirror the challenges of the creative industry.

(3) To design, create and validate interactive OERs (videos, podcasts, tutorials) to properly address the skills gaps among BCG target groups.

(4) To promote creative industry VET tutors’ professional development, adapting their key competences to the new challenges (eg. digital and technological innovations)

(5) To showcase, disseminate and replicate proven methodologies, tools and practices for the EU creative VET ecosystem.

Bridging the Creativity Gap will produce:

– Five Intellectual Outputs (i) Learning Curriculum. Competence Matrix (skills and indicators including a paper/study).(ii) methodological toolkit
(iii) set of OERs (videos, podcasts, articles, tutors guides) (iv) Teachers’ guidelines. Tutors guidelines, a comprehensive approach for building capacity skills for creative students (facilitation and evaluation handbook (v) Quality Assurance Framework
– Two Short-term joint staff training events in London and Barcelona
– One blended mobility of VET learners activity in Ljubljana
– Two multiplier events in London (D&AD’s New Blood Festival) and Barcelona (ADCE’s High Potential) addressing an overall audience of at least 200 professionals, students, tutors and stakeholders from the EU creative sector.

BCG’s activities and results will contribute to reaching a wide impact at the local, regional, national and European levels among the project’s participating organisations as well as BCG’s targeted groups

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 449958 Eur

Project Coordinator

D&AD & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Art Directors Club of Europe
• OULUN YLIOPISTO
• ZAVOD ZA KULTURO, UMETNOST IN IZOBRAZEVANJE KERSNIKOVA
• INSTITUT D’ARQUITECTURA AVANCADA DE CATALUNYA