Our culture forum works to promote the increased recognition of culture as a vital aspect of public policies, and to foster access to and participation in culture for all.

 

Culture is central to the sustainable development of Europe’s cities. It is an engine for urban economic development and contributes directly to enhancing the quality of life of citizens. Culture has increasingly become at the heart of local development agendas, and is increasingly connected to other areas. This has been a key trend in the past decade and is likely to continue in the next one. This is also a clear trend at EU level and this is reflected in more and more transversal European Commission’s policies and programmes where culture is connected to other policies.  Furthermore, most of the five identified challenges can apply to other areas of urban policies (economic development, social inclusion, etc).

The EUROCITIES culture forum is a platform for our members to network and exchange on policies and practices implemented in cities.

Our culture forum focuses on promoting culture as a means of social change; using culture to improve relationships between people, especially young people; promoting links between creative industries and culture; and exchanging best practice for improving quality of life through cultural experiences and development.

In the EUROCITIES culture strategy we identify five key challenges that cities' cultural administrations and institutions are currently facing: the demographic challenge; The audience empowerment challenge; The governance and networking challenge; The digital challenge; and the financial and organisational challenge (future fit local cultural administrations). We have connected each challenges to activities that will be implemented by the EUROCITIES culture forum, by our EU funded projects and by the EUROCITIES network as a whole.