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Accommodating Creative Knowledge: Competitiveness of European Metropolitan Regions Within the Enlarged Union

Objective

In this project we aim to assess the impact of the emerging "creative class" and the rise of the "creative industries" on the competitiveness of EU metropolitan regions. While the traditional "hard" location factors that firms use will remain important for international competitiveness, new "soft" location factors that are mainly related to attracting the required "talent pool" would deserve increasing attention. The central research question we will address is: what are the conditions for creating or stimulating "creative knowledge regions" in the context of the extended European Union? We will compare the recent socio-economic development trends and strategies in several metropolitan regions across Europe to get more insight in the extent to which creativity, innovation and knowledge are indeed the keys to a successful long-term economic development. The metropolitan regions in the ACRE project are: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Birmingham, Budapest, Dublin, Helsinki, Leipzig, Milan, Munich, Poznan, Riga, Sofia and Toulouse. With the results of this study the EU might seriously consider strengthening the profile of metropolitan regions within the EU area as regards creative knowledge branches and activities in the face of increasing competition with other growth regions in the world. The most important topic to consider is which metropolitan regions might develop as "creative knowledge regions", and which regions might not. This will depend on current positions in global and European networks and on historic development paths. In this research leading European experts with complementary disciplinary backgrounds from places with clearly different pathways concerning the creative knowledge economy will be brought together. This will help to significantly improve our understanding of the conditions that shape the emergence of a creative knowledge economy and of its importance for enhanced competitiveness.

Call for proposal

FP6-2004-CITIZENS-4
See other projects for this call

Coordinator

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Address
Spui 21
Postbus 19268 Amsterdam
Netherlands

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EU contribution
€ 0,00

Participants (12)