Funding Program: Plan Nacional de I+D, MINECO
Duration: 2016-2020
Main researchers:
- Montserrat Pareja-Eastaway
Researchers:
- Montserrat Simó Solsona
- Joaquín Turmo
- Teresa Bartual
Summary:
CREASPACE is a subproject of the Coordinated project CREAPOL: New rationale of public / collective action to promote creativity, innovation and culture in the territory. The purpose of this coordinated project is to define, based on the specificities of the creative, cultural and knowledge sectors, measures, actions or programs of public policy to encourage and strengthen them as well as the enhancement of the territory in which they develop .
As we researched in the project INNRED, cultural, creative and knowledge industries are in the embryonic development of new forms of production based on knowledge transfer networks and are less hierarchical than traditional industries organizational formulas. As creativity can only be understood looking at the interaction of individuals with social and contextual factors (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). Therefore, certain environments facilitate interaction and provide more excitement and increased effervescence of ideas (Florida, 2002). Collaboration and interaction between the players can follow different patterns (Grabher, 2004), but in all cases a growing phenomenon of disintermediation is easily noticeable. Creative spaces are linked to concepts such as collaboration, participation, cooperation, co-creation, open innovation, co-design, co-working … Currently, recurrent vocabulary terms of the company, management or other social agents. On the other hand, as is already evident in the results of the INNOVA project,
the creative space has to take root in a community or region and become part of this identity and giving true value to a “creative space”.
Under the framework defined by the coordinated project CREAPOL (New rationale for public / collective action to promote creativity, innovation and culture in the territory), CREASPACE aims to focus on ‘spaces for creation’, broadly defined and including different types: formal (university) and informal (communities of practice), public (factories of creation) or private (makers), ephemeral (festivals) or permanent (co-working spaces) monosectorial or transversal, traditional (R & D) and emerging (online support pages).
The main objective of this project is to answer the following question: up to what extent do new spaces for creation constitute a feasible and sustainable alternative for the emergence of creativity and innovation to existing spaces? This question is subdivided into others: what are the differences and similarities between spaces (business models, objectives, activities, actors…)?; What are the key variables for success?; What is the role of “creative space” in the worker trajectory? Do creative spaces that generate innovation, knowledge and creativity contribute to create competitive advantages in the economy by promoting its internationalization? Finally, following the path of CREAURBS and INNRED project, CREASPACE want to focus on the role of the territory through the study of creative spaces in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia.
The CREASPACE project also aims to study in depth three spaces of creation that belong to three radically different types and scalar dimensions, universities, communities of practice and coworking spaces. The analysis will be conducted throughout three general sub-objectives:
– To define the ideal characteristics of creative spaces to transform creativity into innovation in four metropolitan cities, namely, Madrid, Bilbao, Valencia and Barcelona.
– Analyse success and failure factors of the three creative spaces (university, community of practice, co-working).
– Compare with similar spaces located in other countries (UK, Italy, Portugal).