CO-CREATION FOR GROWTH AND INCLUSION

Call summary

Scene Setter

Europe has many competitive strengths: the talent and creativity of its people, a strong industrial base, a vibrant services sector, a performing education system, its position as the world's biggest trading bloc and leading destination for foreign direct investment. Likewise, Europe can also count on its strong values, democratic institutions, its consideration for economic, social and territorial cohesion and solidarity, and its respect for the environment and cultural diversity.

Europe is facing the need to identify the obstacles to and to find untapped sources of growth and employment, renewing the legitimacy of public policy-making, especially through greater citizens’ involvement, and of delivering better public services for all.

These issues need to be understood and addressed (cf. stronger evidence-base) in order for Europe to progress at socio-economic, political, educational and cultural levels, taking into account an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. An emerging approach for tackling many of these issues is to encourage creativity and collaboration between various societal actors through co-creation. It is therefore proposed to focus on co-creation for growth and inclusion: engaging citizens, users, academia, social partners, public authorities, businesses including SMEs, creative sectors and social entrepreneurs in processes that span from identifying problems to delivering solutions.

The potential for societal and innovative development through co-creation in all sectors of society is widely recognised and the current socio-economic context, despite many difficulties, provides for manifold opportunities to fully exploit it.

A clear link with co-creation and social innovation in culture may also be found in CULT-COOP call.