Project Title:	Creative West – Pan regional creative platform for sustainable growth of rural peripheral creative businesses
Theme (Select one)	Priority 1: Promoting innovation and competitiveness in remote and peripheral areas ·          transnational cooperation networks and knowledge transfer to develop existing and new innovative products ·          cooperation and exchange of best practice between SMEs on how to address and reach markets with existing and new products
Project Description:	A development project focussed on creating and piloting a practical platform for the sustainable growth of regional Creative industries primarily through export development and increased interaction with the wider regional business ecosystem, in the NPP regions.

Description of service(s) or product(s) to be developed:

This initiative will seek to gather concerned parties (Regional agencies, Educational institutions, Government agencies and specialist organisations) together to design and develop a practical initiative to sustainably grow regional CE businesses in the NPP region based on identified potential of export growth from peripheral regions of creative goods and services and increased levels of interaction with the non creative businesses in the wider regional economies. The practical outputs are based on existing analysis of  the CE in the regional context  and  the initiative outputs  may broadly be envisaged  as : 1.    A pan regional platform developed and implemented for Export growth of creative goods and services. Need:  Research has shown that in peripheral regions many creative businesses are not active in global markets. E.g. In the West of Ireland 66% of Creative businesses do not actively participate in the global market, and receive less than 5% of their total turnover from exports. This is believed similar in many rural creative economies. ·         development of a pan regional open access export platform to market and sell existing creative goods and services ·         Apps support for platform – themed offerings ·          Passport to export programme - deliver on thematic meet the buyer initiatives in European and international markets for CE businesses Preliminary economic impact assessment needed to forecast impact 2.       A pan regional model for  CE Market and Product growth through developing and implementing functioning networks of practice (NOPs) for Creative businesses (targeted within the CE and outside to the general industrial base)     Need:   Studies have shown that in rural peripheral creative regions there is often minimal interaction between similar businesses especially in the micro SME case. Similarly the level of interaction between these creative businesses and “mainstream” industry remains weak. This diminishes opportunities for product and market development.    Enabling Industry overlap: Successful organizations in the new economy share many traits in common. These firms, organizations and institutions have adjusted to the new business context by experimenting with innovative strategies that use dynamic practices such as the exploration and exploitation of individual and collective knowledge. In the face of these new changes, firms must learn more by investing in knowledge and knowledge transfer. They must also learn smarter by diversifying their knowledge sources and becoming open to the tacit and implicit knowledge of members of the organization, partners, and clients, whether professionals or non-professionals. Lastly, they must learn faster by leveraging new information and communication technologies.  New ideas, original processes, innovative designs, and new products that differentiate an organization and ensure its survival can be created when rich mines of data from these various sources are allowed to converge, mix and hybridize. ·         establish and implement NOP's on a pan regional scale to drive product development and service revenues for CE businesses ·         Deliver a platform to make interaction and best practice explicit and evolving   3.    Model for regional Built environment development - a cursory assessment of benefits and viability of local authorities offering temporary creative launch pads in towns and villages through "creative caretaker" programme for empty shops and offices in public thoroughfares.

Expected Outcome(s)	Summary- the final product will be a product “platform” which combines the three aspects above in order to grow the creative economy in peripheral regions. This is intended to be sustainable and last post NPP. Similarly the model can then be expanded to include other rural regions in the EU – especially those experiencing difficulty accessing technology or marketing abilities to participate in global markets.   As such regional creative businesses will benefit from the following outcomes : ·          A multi national low cost access to global markets (addressing market failures such as technology and marketing skills deficits through the bundling of creative goods and services. ·          Greater employment opportunities in the peripheral creative economies o         Directly through sector revenue growth ( e.g. 2000 employment opportunities in western region of Ireland estimated) o         Indirectly through induced and indirect benefits   ·          By linking creative talent in NPP regions to “mainstream” industries it is intended to strengthen the innovation capability in the regions – through networks of practise. ·          Better use of redundant retail space – creative caretaker initiative resulting in quality of life and societal improvements for the general public.
Justification according to NPP concepts (See Annex1):	This proposal is closely aligned to and justified by the NPP concepts specifically: Priority 1: Promoting innovation and competitiveness in remote and peripheral areas   It addresses the following key NPP strategic focus areas: ·          transnational cooperation networks and knowledge transfer to develop existing and new innovative products ·          cooperation and exchange of best practice between SMEs on how to address and reach markets with existing and new products ·          Producing a new product or service that has a transnational or trans regional character ·          Dependence on single economic activities – The development of the plan and future implementation should lead to an up skilling of elements of the regional workforce. This in turn will lead to diversification. The proposal also addresses a range of other NPP programme requirements such as, innovation, and creativity as an asset in the periphery.
Current partnership Ongoing	National university of Ireland Galway (The leading University in the region), Sligo county council, Craigavon council, The WDC (which is a statutory body responsible for the development of the Western Region of Ireland),
Contact persona:	Ian Brannigan Development Manager for the WDC, Patrick Collins CISC (NUIG), Paul Kavanagh, Craigavon council.
E-mail:	paul.kavanagh@craigavon.gov.uk ianbrannigan@wdc.ie ;  p.collins@nuigalway.ie
Address:	Development Manager, Western Development Commission, Dillon House, Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon. Ireland.
Phone:	Tel:  094 9861893 Mobile: 0866048012 Fax: 094 9861443