Chic and Ethic

This Grundtvig project will provide the opportunity for fashion designers across Europe to work with sustainable clothing. The project culminates in a fashion show in Bucharest in 2011. “Chic and Ethic” project is the initiative of seven European partners that have complementary expertise in adult education and in the fields of sustainability, textile, clothing and design industries. The 7 partners come from different backgrounds: from the academic area (Poland), from the civil society area (Romania, Greece), from the private sector (UK and Italy), from the public sector (Turkey and Lithuania).

The project “Chic and Ethic” aims to contribute to the promotion of sustainable values and tools in the design/clothing industry at European and national levels.

“Chic and Ethic” project is built around 36 small/innovative/prospective designers that will be informed, non-formally trained on sustainability and that will “learn by doing” sustainable clothing design. Each of 7 partners will select for the implementation of the project 6 prospective designers that will participate at the workshops organized in each partner’s country. During the workshops, the small/prospective designers will debate among themselves and with the partners’ staff about the stakes and tools of sustainable design. Throughout the project, the 36 adult learners will create sustainable clothing items. A final event will be organized in Bucharest with all the partners in order to disseminate the objectives, activities and results of “Chic and ethic”, especially of the 36 sustainable clothing items.

 

Agri  Spaces

This project developed in collaboration with Liverpool Vision will aim to provide an innovative approach to supporting, managing and developing urban agricultural spaces within regeneration areas of our cities, using innovative web technologies, experience-based learning, interactive sessions and workshops. With this project we are looking at the adaptation and use of existing urban spaces to provide food and employment for inner city areas.

It will be developed under several initiatives including: Anna Lindh Foundation, Grundtvig, Leonardo, Interreg and Urbact
This project would develop, complement and extend aspects of the work currently undertaken by the Greater Liverpool Food Alliance project see: http://www.urbanag.org.uk/projects/alliance-of-urban-agriculture-producers/

The project will provide specific support and training for people working within this arena including those responsible for regeneration, town planners, architects and local government officers. Three key modules for the project will be:

1. content development

2. online environment and collaborative communication tools development

3. Training programme/framework

The content will include: Virtual Support, Mentoring, Networking and Collaborative Working, ethical and cultural implications, sustainable communities, equality of opportunity and inclusion issues and a training programme covering generic and specific support.

The training framework will be developed around active participation and collaborative learning.

Although there are several initiatives across the World that seek to promote community agriculture efforts and increased access to locally grown food there is a definite need to address the management and development of these initiatives within the EU including:

  • traditional education and training environments are not geared up to dealing with these community activities.
  • ethical, cultural and faith needs have not been fully considered.
  • the challenges with providing flexible and multi-use urban spaces for food production.

This project will address the issues above and alleviate the lack of understanding to the needs and requirements of the development and management of an urban food ‘industry’.

“AGRI-SPACES” will support those from urban communities that see urban food production as an integral part of regeneration of cities, that is, those wishing to develop innovative ways of managing urban agricultural initiatives, in addition, architects and planners that work in association with those communities including local government and NGOs. It will be developed as a best practice model with the specific focus on developing urban environments conducive to success within these communities. This will allow the “AGRI-SPACES” project to be developed, to be flexible in its design and implementation and allow it in addition, to be adapted to a wide range of intercultural dialogue activities.

Specific aims of the project are to develop, research best practice, test, evaluate the impact, improve and disseminate and exploit innovative approaches to targeted support, training and development of agricultural spaces within urban environments.

 

Creative Siberia – This project aims to contribute to positive social changes in Russia by bringing Creative Industries approach and expertise to the Siberia region from the UK and to develop an efficient model for creative clusters initiation & development in the industrial cities of Western & Eastern  Siberia including; Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk and Irkutsk. This project was part funded by the British Council Russia and conducted in collaboration with Centre for Education & Language Development “RTK Initiative”, Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

 

VIC – Virtal business incubation

This Leonardo project developed a virtual business incubator for the creative industries using innovative emerging technologies

The project provided specific business support and training for start-up creative companies. Three key modules for the project were:

  • Content development
  • Online environment and collaborative communication tools development
  • Training programme

 

Research into best practice clearly illustrates how effective business incubation is. However, within the creative industries graduates move towards self-employment in specialist workshops with only 11% of graduate designers progressed into major design companies. The traditional incubator environment is not suitable because of the specialist resources and needs of the industry yet these companies require generic and specialist business support that is delivered in suitable and appropriate modules with on-line support and training. Design graduates are reluctant to develop business skills and entrepreneurial acumen. Additionally:

  • Traditional areas of business support were not geared up to dealing with creative businesses
  • There are challenges with persuading talented entrepreneurs of the importance of commercial skills
  • There are challenges with clients of the worth of their IP

 

The virtual incubator will support start-ups from the creative content sector, that is, those developing innovative content within art and design industries.  It has been developed as a best practice model for business incubation with the specific focus on developing an environment condusive to success within the Creative Industries.

Specific aims of the project were to develop, research best practice, test, evaluate the impact, improve and disseminate and exploit an innovative ICT approach to targeted business training and development based upon business incubation.

Of the 12 EU partners, 4 were from the NW