Discretionary government transfers to promote cultural export and to support large scale international cultural events/Europe-Asia Roundtable Sessions (EARS)

Where

Finland

When

2016

Who

Ministry of Education and Culture

Key objectives of the measure:

Discretionary government transfers are the most important tool of the Ministry of Education and Culture to implement Finland’s cultural policy. There are currently over 30 open calls for projects covering all main policy objectives covering e.g. support to national cultural organisations, cultural heritage, cultural events, children’s culture and cultural entrepreneurship and export. The mission of EARS is to help build and foster relationships between creative professionals, and to connect the fastest growing creative industry market, Asia, to the rest of the world. EARS lives its mission by offering leading information on Asia’s creative industries through talented professionals, and by bringing professionals together to share best practices and discover business opportunities. To date, EARS events have been organized altogether eight times in Helsinki, Beijing and Shanghai. In August 2015, EARS gathered 350 creative industry professionals from 31 countries to Helsinki.

Scope of the measure:

International

Nature of the measure:

financial

Main feature of the measure:

The Ministry of Education and Culture allocated grants to the organisers of the event through to two different measures. The other has been support for cultural export and the other support for large scale international cultural events, i.e. financial measures corresponding to stated policy objectives of promoting cultural exports and attracting large scale events to Finland. The support is granted through open calls for projects.

Results expected through the implementation of the measure:

As regards the policy measures themselves, the expected results of support to cultural export projects include fostering professional networks and helping branding of CCS companies and/or their products and services. The expected results of large scale cultural events include similarly fostering networks and promoting the position of Finland and Finnish actors in relevant international networks. EARS itself tries to help connect Asian and European professionals in order to facilitate cooperation of different types.

State grants are allocated to eligible legal entities such as associations or companies. The receiver of a grant is responsible for carrying out the project in question.

Financial resources allocated to implement the measure:

The financial support by the Ministry has ranged from 110 000 to 150 000 euro annually between 2012 and 2016.

Main conclusions of the evaluation of the measure:

The Ministry is in a process to evaluate and up-date its policy on discretional government transfers.

Indicators used to determine impact:

Each measure is constantly assessed by way of engaging with stakeholders and reading the reports of recipients of support. These reports are not sufficiently standardised and some contain detailed evaluation of the financed project and some only a general description. In general, impact assessment is not sufficiently structured and the Ministry is yet to implement indicators to that extent. In the case of EARS, which has been running from 2012, the Ministry assesses especially the number of partners contributing the event, the number of participants, their documented feedback and the number and quality of contracts or projects that come out of the event.

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