Creative entrepreneurship in ceramic regions – developing, educating, encouraging
Ceramics are deeply rooted in our daily lives (tableware, tiles, architectures etc.) and quality products rely on creative designers that understand the material and its functionalities. CE aggregates an EU wide unique set of regions with long-standing traditions and up-to-date knowledge in this field. The wider sector offers jobs for 0,5 M employees, of whom 80% in SMEs. However, the regions remain scattered and far from exploiting their economic potential. Furthermore, global competition (e.g. low-budget products from China) is significantly threatening the sector.
CerCee establishes a CE-wide CCI-network which pulls together key-knowledge institutes, SME, regions and a network of museums, the latter acting as hub for co-operative development, memory function, accessible archive and marketing platform. The projects aim is to counteract the global pressure through 1) merging regional approaches first-time towards a joint CE-knowledge pool by assessing and mapping existing knowledge, approaches and economic potential of SME, by 2) Developing cooperative and EU-wide applicable trainings and education & outreach activities for boosting entrepreneurial skills and knowledge base to regional creative SME and by 3) co-developing and piloting innovative marketing strategies and cooperative e-commerce portai. All activities are strongly supported and facilitated by up-to-date IT-tools to boost accessibility, skill development and marketing. A key-output is the virtual and overall accessible “City of Ceramics”, a knowledge, marketing and cooperation hub for the CE-ceramic CCI.
CerDees innovative approach is twofold: 1) the tools and marketing strategies will be new to this sector; 2) the joint, transnational approach and the CE-wide web-Portal is a first-timer to this sector. The transnational added value will be the widely accessible knowledge base, the cooperative and synergetic development of applicable approaches and a long-term cooperation hub/platform.