Northwest creativity gets €100,000 boost

MATCHING CREATIVE with traditional industries is the aim of an EU-funded programme due to start in the northwest this week.

Graphic and web designers and others in the creative sector will be encouraged to offer their skills to life sciences, tourism, technology and agri-food businesses.

The northwest is the sole Irish region selected so far for the €100,000 initiative, which is backed by the European Creative Industries Alliance.

Participants will receive “talent vouchers” to finance the collaboration between diverse sectors, as part of a business support programme named 4CNW (Creative Challenge Celtic Crescent North-West).

Full details will be outlined at a mini-symposium during the Institute of Technology Sligo’s enterprise and innovation week, starting today.

The project was drawn up in a partnership between Sligo County Council and the Western Development Commission. The pair entered a successful bid to the European Commission’s enterprise and industry directorate with local authority partners from Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo and Roscommon.

“This will add value to the existence of successful technology and industries within the region, and help unlock the potential of the ‘disconnected’ creative talent [in] northwest Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland,” Sligo County manager Hubert Kearns said.

The commission defines the creative sector as “those businesses which rely most on human creativity to generate economic value”, ranging from television production to graphic design, music, theatre, architecture and the visual arts.

In a 2009 report, it forecast that the western region’s “creative sector” could generate employment for 13,000 people.

At that time, some 11,000 people were already working in the arts, representing 3 per cent of total employment in the region.