CONNECTING AUDIENCES European Alliance for Education and Training in Audience Development Erasmus Project

Project Title

CONNECTING AUDIENCES European Alliance for Education and Training in Audience Development

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 : Knowledge Alliances for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics:

Project Summary

CONNECT is a Knowledge Alliance that promotes innovative cooperation between universities and enterprises in the cultural sector across Europe. Over the course of 36 months (from January 2017 to December 2019) 3 universities from ES, PL, UK; 5 private organisations from IT, ES, DK and UK; 1 public body, the municipality of the City of Warsaw, and 1 major EU network from BE, have joint efforts to CONNECT students and practitioners to the real-world job market by developing entrepreneurship and leadership skills.During the project a new Twin-track programme (TTP) in audience development for students and practitioners working in arts management has been designed and launched by a transnational team of 46 researchers, teachers and trainers in 5 national hubs in Spain, UK, Italy, Denmark and Poland, each one composed by higher education institutions and private cultural organisations. In order to ensure the TTP was set up correctly, at the beginning of the project a detailed needs analysis of the selected target groups was conducted in ES, IT, DK, PL, UK. The research findings are available on the project’s website.The TTP is based on multidisciplinary training modules mixing formal and informal learning methodologies and digital resources. At the core of the programme is the concept that postgraduate students and senior practitioners from cultural organisations attend a course where they are paired and asked to work in couples on an audience challenge. In this sense, each couple defined and implemented together an action-research project in the cultural organization where the practitioner worked. Problem based learning inspired the entire learning experience. In order to make this happen, students became interns of the practitioners’ cultural organisations during the months of the action research project. Moreover, a mentoring programme was also setup to support both students and practitioners throughout this process.The seven modules that configure the backbone of the TTP are the following: (1) Introduction and key concepts; (2) How to understand your organization; (3) How to understand your audience; (4) How to develop strategies and ideas; (5) How to design your experiment and make the case; (6) How to lead change and (7) How to promote positive organisational change. The first 4 modules are the theoretical modules, whereas modules 5,6 and 7 are related to the action-research project design and implementation.According to the TTP evaluation, we can state that CONNECT has supported the development of new entrepreneurial attitudes that the participants actually reported in their feedback. The following elements contributed to the way entrepreneurial skills and attitude were actually enabled: the mentoring scheme, the teaching modules to develop soft skills, the facilitation tools and methods adopted in all modules, and the Action Research itself.CONNECT has achieved the following results:* A new training programme on audience development supported by a Mentoring Scheme for the development of transversal skills, reflective practice, entrepreneurial mind-set to adapt to continuous change in the labour market.* 2 Winter Schools in audience development (Turin 2019 & Bilbao 2019) and participation in 2 EU forums* Impact: 63 postgraduate students (junior profiles); 61 cultural practitioners (senior profiles); 41 mentors (senior profiles + experts in audience development) and 32 trainers, all of them in 5 different countries (Spain, UK, Italy, Denmark, and Poland)* An EU platform with new digital resources supporting audience development internationally, by drawing on academic sources and in-work practice.* A mutually supportive network and learning community of academics, practitioners and students in audience development.* An innovative model of cooperation between universities and cultural organisations

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 999935 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DE LA IGLESIA DE DEUSTO ENTIDAD RELIGIOSA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• GOLDSMITHS’ COLLEGE
• CENTER FOR KUNST OG INTERKULTUR
• FONDAZIONE FITZCARRALDO
• MELTING PRO LEARNING SOCIETA COOPERATIVA
• RESEAU EUROPEEN POUR LE MANAGEMENT ET LES POLITIQUES CULTURELLES
• UNIWERSYTET IM. ADAMA MICKIEWICZA W POZNANIU
• THE AUDIENCE AGENCY