On 28-29 January 2020 the CCS Ecosystems: FLIPPING THE ODDS Conference took place at LaVallée creative hub in Brussels. Gathering close to 250 CCS Stakeholders from across Europe, the two-day high-level event was organised jointly by the Creative FLIP project and the European Commission, Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture.

The objective of the event was to take stock and learn from existing initiatives that support access to finance for CCS, but especially to reflect and debate about how we can still do better. The diversity of participants, ranging from CCS support organisations, advisors, financiers and national and European policy makers at all levels ensured that all voices were heard and different perspectives taken on board.

During the first day, the focus was on taking stock of the current CCS ecosystem, and discussing with CCS support organisations, advisors, financiers and policy makers what the (common) priorities are to further strengthen the ecosystem in the coming years. The questions reviewed were: What are the necessary building blocks for a mature support ecosystem, how should these building blocks connect and interact, and what is the role of different actors?

As an introduction to this day, in the morning of 28th January 2020, Creative FLIP held a closed focus group session with selected experts – policy makers and financiers, to discuss in more depth the results of the Policy makers survey conducted by Creative FLIP and the new model and tools on Finance ecosystem for CCS that will come out as results of the project.

On day two, the discussion zoomed in on the role of the EU in stimulating better CCS financing and innovation: which policy actions have been taken in past years and what can Europe do next to further stimulate the sustainable development of cultural and creative activities in Europe? Furthermore, participants discussed how the recommendations of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) groups “Access to Finance” and “Public Policies for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in CCS” and the Cross-sectoral Council conclusions have been implemented in the different member states and regions and what still needs to be done.

The grand closing of the conference featured closing addresses by Commissioner Mariya Gabriel and Secretary-General of Goethe-Institut Johannes Ebert. Commissioner Gabriel vouched to hold CCI on the top of her agenda and invited all stakeholders to work together, not waste valuable time and initiate new policy proposals and actions. Mr Ebert emphasized the importance of cultural and creative sector for the European economy, but even more so for the social cohesion of our societies.