Culturability

Starting from 2013, as part of the program of the same name, the Unipolis Foundation has promoted culturability calls to support cultural and social innovation projects presented mainly by young people under 35. The purpose and object of the initiative have in part changed and evolved in the years. The first edition 2013/14, culturability - doing together in a cooperative, was aimed at supporting the birth of 15 new cooperative enterprises in the cultural and creative sectors; the second 2014/15, culturability - spaces for social innovation, insisted on the theme of cultural innovation, with a first focus on the theme of the recovery of abandoned buildings; the third of 2016 and the fourth of 2017, culturability - regenerating spaces to share, were dedicated exclusively to projects for the reactivation of culturally based spaces. Beyond these differences, the different editions have some common characteristics and, more generally, share the aims of the more comprehensive culture program. The field of action remains that of culture and creativity, with a specific focus on innovative projects of social value, which make the dimension of culture concrete as a lever for sustainable and highly inclusive development. From this point of view, the high participation in the calls made it possible to intercept and have a very interesting cross-section of those projects promoted from below by cultural organizations and operators that are helping to innovate the sector in Italy. The Unipolis Foundation - 2017 Mission Report 54 With culturability calls, not only new, original or brilliant ideas are "rewarded", but above all the ability to translate them into credible and sustainable projects over time. The ambition behind this choice is to disseminate and concretely support an approach to sustainability that is both cultural, social, economic and environmental; to demonstrate the economic capacity of the cultural and creative sectors; to train young people in managerial and market skills, thus creating opportunities for new employment; to support hybrid models of sustainability, in which economic stability and the ability to generate social benefits are combined. Just as the culturability program is aimed mainly at new generations, even in the calls for tenders the privileged recipients remain under 35. Also for this reason, the call takes place almost entirely online - from the form for submitting projects on culturability. org to support participants, through the promotion and communication of the initiative. However, the virtual dimension is always accompanied by a physical dimension, first and foremost thanks to the tours of the culturability calls, that is, the meetings organized during the opening period of the call along the whole peninsula. An opportunity not only to talk about the initiative and meet potential participants, but also to discuss the issues of the project with policy makers, designers, scholars. In this way, stimuli, new ideas, proposals and indications are received that allow the announcement to be integrated and improved. These initiatives also represent an opportunity to reiterate the importance of the ability of cultural organizations to relate to their reference territory, building networks among themselves and with local stakeholders, with a view to process innovation that brings together different subjects, from public to private via the third sector. Another feature of the culturability calls is the presence of not only an economic contribution, but of broad support, which covers as much as possible the various aspects that make up the launch and implementation of the proposal. The projects that pass the first evaluation phase and the finalists are guaranteed both financial support and a path of accompaniment and mentoring, thanks to the activation of a network of subjects that, year after year, makes available to the 55 young participants of the culturability calls their own know-how. The culturability project was born, in fact, also to experiment and implement new ways of supporting culture, hence the idea of ​​a call that develops with innovative logics / methods and alongside the economic element also the exchange of skills and relationships, creating a real partnership between donor and beneficiary.