ACRE

Summary

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. 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.