ÉS_CCAMVI

HIECPU/2020/5

AIMS:Articulate a plausible sequence of socio-economic transformation for the Valencian Community based on culture and creativity and facilitating innovation.

Expected impacts: To provide evidence, strategies, action plans and monitoring and control mechanisms to all public and private Valencian agents in order to favour a change in the degree of complexity and orientation of the Valencian production model, based on culture and creativity.

Justification

Numerous recent evidences show that the Valencian economy is not moving with the necessary speed towards a change of productive model. As a whole, the Valencian economy is unable to overcome the disease of low productivity and this means that we continue to slide down the slope of low wages, few professional opportunities for talent and innovation, and a brain drain that we can no longer compensate for with that supposed "quality of life" premium. Jordi Palafox, a specialist in economic history, reminded us in an article that the negative relative evolution of Valencian GDP per inhabitant in recent decades is exceptional. In the 130 years prior to 1990, there has been no other period in which the loss of relative position has been so continuous or so intense. The latest regional accounting data announced that Asturias had overtaken us in terms of GDP per capita, and now we are only above the perennial laggards of Andalusia, Extremadura, the Canary Islands and Murcia.
In general terms, it seems to be quite clear what the diagnosis is and what remains to be clarified is how the situation can be addressed, with concrete public policy programmes. This research aims to explore the possibilities of a theory of change based on the small and medium scale activation of resources based on culture and creativity.

We know that, in order to improve productivity, some recipes that have worked in other economies have been to intensify investments in capital, to incorporate R&D, innovation and technologies in the productive process, to improve human capital, to increase the medium size of companies and to promote their internationalisation. The problem with all these solutions is that they tend to have long maturation periods, i.e. they require decades, or at least decades of continuous, coherent, highly articulated and coordinated public policies at different levels and with a large number of resources. Can the so-called "economy of the cultural and creative sectors" provide an alternative to our growth model? We already have clear proof and evidence that, on average, the cultural and creative sectors show higher levels of productivity than the average of the services sector, of the average of the economy as a whole and with much higher figures than other groupings such as tourism.
We are talking about activities capable of relating flexibly with the rest of the productive system at different scales and adaptable to the singularities of the different local productive models.

In summary, the main objective is to develop a theory and an analytical methodology that provides evidence that the dimension of employment in the cultural and creative sectors has a clear correlation with the levels of per capita income (at regional and local level) and with the productivity of the labour factor (at the level of European regions), so that a strategy based on the expansion of the dimension of the cultural and creative sectors would clearly shift the potential production frontier of the Valencian economy. We are proposing a transition strategy that would allow us to initiate transformations in the short and medium term, with immediate results and impacts while we undertake the structural changes (investment, R&D, improvement of human capital), the impacts of which, if applied effectively, would be felt over a period of more than a decade.

Although some evidence already exists, it is true that we have neither the experience, nor the information, nor the sufficient consolidated theoretical corpus to know how to operationally implement an integral strategy that orients public policy action towards a change of productive model, overlapping a first phase based on culture and creativity with a second phase of structural transition.
The relations between the cultural and creative sectors go much further and have complex readings that go from the macro dimension to the micro dimension and consequently the policies oriented towards the cultural and creative sectors have to become a new strategic artingeniería (allow us the neologism) of social transformation, which requires very high doses of instrumental rationality, knowledge, quality information on the socio-economic reality and rigorous research, but also of proposing risky experiences of prototyping and trial and error tactics.
The objectives would therefore be:

1. To understand the relationships between culture and creativity through analytical models (parametric and non-parametric) on the relationships between culture-creativity-innovation and regional development.

2. To understand through comparative analysis of European regions identified as outliers the role of institutional factors.

3. To derive a set of recommendations based on a White Paper on culture, creativity, innovation and regional development and a telematic tool for regional diagnosis.

4. Establish and if possible test a set of recommendations specific to the Valencian case with the intention of bringing about social transformation.

The underlying idea is based on a theory of change that aims to:

1. Activate small and medium-scale innovations based on culture and creativity, which can globally affect the Valencian production model in multiple dimensions through their adaptive impact on the different local production models.

2. Identify which other initiatives from the rest of the quadruple helix could fit into the strategy.

3. Align them, with formal and informal structures and fit them into regulatory policies at local and regional level and insert them into European guidelines with the initial objective of consolidating a cloud of actions with sufficient critical mass to have transformative effects at niche level and measurable effects on improving productivity levels, in the relatively short term, if our analysis and diagnosis is correct.

A second phase would be activated overlappingly when these productivity improvements, together with determined political action, directed the necessary resources (especially from central government and European funding) to undertake investments and spending in innovation, the education system, industrial policy, strategic infrastructures, talent attraction and foreign direct investment. The combination of this redirection of resources towards strategic vectors, together with the fact that, in this second phase, also some of the niche transformations would achieve sufficient scale to have transformative impacts on the socio-economic regime. This is the moment at which we could appropriately speak of a change of economic model.
Finally, we could speak of a third phase of change in which we refer not only to the transformation of the economic model, but also to the set of values and discourses that guide individual actions and determine the horizon of collective desires. And these meanings are also the product of the field of culture and should place Valencian society in a society of solidarity, which respects individual freedom and promotes an informed and critical citizenship, attentive to the challenges of climate change and sustainability, which addresses the problems of ageing, gender equality, social inclusion and which understands the objective of good living and quality of life, in short, which pursues the common good. Then we could talk about systemic changes.

cultura, creatividad, economía, estrategia

• Chuan Li - Universitat de València

• GVA - GE - Emerging research groups