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Pau Rausell, director of the Research Unit in Economics of Culture and Tourism of the University of Valencia, has published an article in Invertia on the latest advances made in Culture and Innovation.
Pau Rausell, director of the Economics of Culture and Tourism Research Unit at the University of Valencia, has published an article in Invertia on the latest advances made in Culture and Innovation. The importance of culture in development processes has been widely recognized by global organizations, from the Ibero-American Charter of Culture of the OEI to the UNESCO Hangzhou Declaration of 2013. However, there is still a challenge in terms of defining the concrete trajectories of this connection. Rausell points out that from a scientific point of view, the causal relationship between the cultural sectors of a territory and its per capita income or economic productivity has been confirmed.
According to Pau Rausell, progress is currently being made in understanding this complex relationship between culture, creativity and social and economic variables. A clear example of this is the SIC CRED tool (Societal Impacts of Culture and Creativity. European Regional Dashboard), developed by the H2020 MESOC project, which uses machine learning techniques to estimate the impact that an increase in employment in the cultural and creative sectors would have on 11 social and economic variables in each of the European regions.
The various models include variables that explain these causalities, especially those related to innovation. Thus, according to Rausell, culture and creativity influence innovation through multiple mechanisms. On the one hand, cultural production in itself implies innovation and adds value to productive processes. On the other hand, the creative techniques of the cultural sectors are used to generate innovations in other sectors, such as the automotive industry or renewable energies.
In addition, it is observed that territories with a greater presence of professionals in the cultural and creative sectors are more likely to adopt innovative proposals, both in market products and in social, institutional or political innovations. People who are in contact with culture and creativity are more likely to accept and adopt innovations compared to the average population.
On the other hand, studies also confirm that cultural capital has a multiplier effect on human capital, generating more significant impacts on growth processes and productivity improvement. However, it is important to emphasize that this human talent must be connected to the territory through culture in order to be applied to the symbolic and material attributes of that geographic space.
Culture and artistic practices are intrinsically linked to innovative processes, so a rich cultural environment is essential to foster innovation in a given location. Moreover, culture plays a crucial role as a generator of symbolic content, transforming ideas and values that can lead to changes in attitudes and behaviors, especially in the dual transition pursued by the European Union.
In short, Rausell concludes that cultural and creative activities not only have a short-term economic impact, but also contribute to the process of transformation of the socioeconomic system as a whole. This is why the connection between disciplines and approaches must be fostered, promoting innovative solutions, research, experimentation and shared learning. In this new stage, collective actions aimed at the cultural and creative sectors become strategic and carry great responsibility.
The article can be read at the following link.
