FRIEND CCI: Call for Expression of Interest for Service Providers

This Call for Expression of Interest is directed towards companies and entities, including training centres and advisors, that are interested in providing services to the creative and cultural industries, such as digitisation services, training and advisory. Reacting to this Call for Expression of Interest by registering the company’s or entity’s services on this Euroclusters Submission platform provided by the project helps the SMEs that receive funding for training and internationalisation services through FRIEND CCI to identify providers. 

FRIEND CCI offers to be part of an innovation-friendly network to build-up and skill-up European SMEs from the CCI ecosystem, putting in touch providers with the SMEs beneficiaries of the financial support of the project.

This Call for Expression of Interest is directed towards companies and entities, including training centres and advisors, that are interested in providing services to the creative and cultural industries, such as digitisation services, training and advisory. Reacting to this Call for Expression of Interest by registering the company’s or entity’s services on this Euroclusters Submission platform provided by the project helps the SMEs that receive funding for training and internationalisation services through FRIEND CCI to identify providers. The companies and entities that are interested must be a legal entity based in an EU Member State. There is no limit to the company size. The interested companies and entities must have been in business for at least two years and should be able to communicate indicators proving the quality of their work upon individual request from any partner of the FRIEND CCI project. It is highly recommended that the providers have previous experience in working with clients from the creative and cultural industries.

The following services can be provided to the SMEs from the creative and cultural industries under the FRIEND CCI project:

• Servicesfor the digital transition – Any form of online and in-person service or training that covers digital technologies, including:
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Augmented reality
  • Big Data
  • Cloud computing/technologies 
  • Cybersecurity
  • Digital platforms
  • Internet of Things
  • Monitoring systems and traceability 
  • Online marketing
  • Online collaboration
  • Robotics
  • Specialised (design) software
  • Virtual reality

• Services for the green transition – Any form of online and in-person service or training that covers methods and approaches to make products and services greener and more sustainable, including:
  • Carbon footprint and emission of greenhouse gasses
  • Circularity 
  • Eco-design
  • Energy reduction 
  • Green construction
  • Recycling
  • Resource efficiency
  • Circular Social Responsibility (CSR)

• Services to support internationalisation – Any form of online and in-person service related to internationalisation:
  • Analysis of targets and competitors 
  • Due Diligence Process 
  • Foreign Promotion
  • Intercultural trainings
  • Market study/analysis 
  • Matchmaking services 
  • Risk and opportunities analysis 
  • Study of legal and economic environment, financial system

Other services can be provided if they serve the objective of the up- and re-skilling of the workforce, digitalisation of companies, improving sustainability, increasing resilience, and supporting internationalisation.

The providers can become part of an online-registry, published on the Euroclusters platform, which creative and cultural SMEs selected by the project will consult to support their project implementation. Part of the support fundings that the selected SMEs receive from the Friend CCI project, to foster their resilience and boost their twin transition, hast to be used on the training, digitalisation and internationalisation services that are described in this Call for Expression of interest.

FRIEND CCI will give financial support to SMEs for the development and implementation of cross-sectoral projects aimed to bring innovation both at the level of products and at the level of processes/ technologies, with a specific eye on the needs linked to the twin transition and internationalisation. To this end, the support will entail mandatory training and upskilling/ reskilling activities, according to the specific needs of SMEs. Also, as part of the support, SMEs will be asked to carry out activities to go international, based on their level of readiness.

FRIEND CCI is a EU-funded project that aims to contribute to an improved resilience of the “creative and cultural industries” (CCI) ecosystem in Europe and to its green and digital transformation. This Call for Expression of Interest is part of different services offered by FRIEND CCI, a “Eurocluster” project funded by the European Commission as part of the “Joint Cluster Initiatives (EUROCLUSTERS) for Europe’s recovery” under the Single Market Programme (SMP).

The “Creative and Cultural Industries” are those industries producing and distributing goods or services which at the time they are developed are considered to have a specific attribute, use, or purpose which embodies or conveys cultural expressions, irrespective of the commercial value they may have. The “Creative Industries” are those which use culture as an input and have a cultural dimension, although their outputs are mainly functional. The Cultural and Creative Industries are a varied group, including architecture, archives, libraries and museums, artistic crafts, audio-visual (including film, DVD and video, television, video games and multimedia), tangible and intangible cultural heritage, design (including graphic design, fashion design, advertising), festivals, music, literature, performing arts, (including theatre and dance), books and publishing, radio, and visual arts.

This Call for Expression of Interest is published by the FRIEND CCI consortium. It gathers the following five partners: Venetian Cluster (Italy), Cluster IDiA (Spain), France Clusters (France), ITALCAM (Germany), and Open Hub Creative Cluster (Romania).