Ljubljana, 16 November 2021 – Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy has approved EUR 1.09 million in ERDF funding for the call for proposals Promotion of cultural and creative industries – Centre for Creativity 2022. The call for proposals is the latest in a series of projects that foster dynamic and competitive entrepreneurship for green growth. Over EUR 621 million have been ring-fenced for this area in the past seven years.
As part of the call for proposals, grants will be made available for the development of innovative projects and businesses that are active in the cultural and creative industries, for the development of new products, services and processes by the applicants, and for enhancing the cooperation between the cultural and creative sectors and the economy. Support will be given to the projects that are created at the crossroads of arts, culture, business and technology, that bring together creativity, production and distribution of goods and services and that help expand the range of goods and services that contain or convey cultural content.
The call for proposals will consist of three lots; first, support will be provided for the generation of new business ideas involving an innovative product or a service and an accurate testing of the market ahead of the launch of the product or service. Under the second lot of the call, support will be provided to the growing businesses in the cultural and creative industries that are exploring ways to improve their business processes. This will also involve the promotion of ambitious, innovative and development-driven projects and support to the businesses wishing to expand internationally. The third lot will address the strategic cooperation between the cultural and creative industries and other spheres of the economy.
The projects that will prove to be feasible, economically viable and able to create added value or the projects that will be designed to address specific social problems and demonstrating their contribution to social progress and well-being will be supported under the call for proposals.
The call will be open to natural persons and legal entities that are engaged in an economic activity and classified as a small or a medium-sized enterprise in accordance with the definition of a small or a medium-sized enterprise. The call will presumably be published by the Ministry of Culture in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia on 19 November 2021.
Overall, nearly EUR 622 million in EU funding have already been earmarked for a dynamic and competitive entrepreneurship for green growth in the programming period 2014-2020.