Creative Europe in Aranđelovac

Creative Europe in Aranđelovac

Within the project “EUTEKA – EU in Your Library” the National Library “Sveti Sava” in Aranđelovac hosted a staged debate entitled “EU Support for Cultural Projects” where the European Commission programme for support to culture and media sectors Creative Europe was presented. Nina Mihaljinac, project manager of Culture Desk Serbia spoke about this programme.

Possibilities for project funding through the Creative Europe programme, implemented by the Creative Europe Desk in Serbia, were presented to representatives of cultural institutions and organisations dealing with culture from Aranđelovac.

Projects aspiring to receive support of the Creative Europe programme must cover at least one of the three priorities of this programme: audience development, transnational mobility or support the development of creative industries. Individuals, institutions and organisations from Serbia dealing with culture, and aspiring to apply for funds offered by the Creative Europe programme for the realisation of their projects must also find partners from the minimum of two additional countries, out of which one must be a member of the European Union. The value of projects is up to 200,000 Euros.

Every year Creative Europe offers competitions where individuals and organisations can participate by competing with their programmes in fields such as: European platforms, European networks, projects of European cooperation and translation of literary works. Nina Mihaljinac emphasised that the Creative Europe Desk Serbia offers support in project development to everyone wanting to apply for funds from this programme, but also in filling in the application for obtaining the funds. She explained that the Creative Europe Desk Serbia regularly organises workshops for all interested parties and announced the next such workshop which is scheduled for the first half of August in Tršić.

Over forty organisations and several cities from Serbia have participated in competitions of European cooperation. Among them, there is an equal number of cultural institutions and civil society organisations dealing with topics from the field of culture. Moreover, Serbia won the first place last year in the Creative Europe competition for literary translations.

Speaking about some of examples of good practice from Serbia, Mihaljinac emphasised the example of SASA Musicology Institute which achieved successful cooperation with the University of Oxford and realised a project within which completely new instruments based on principles of quantum physics were developed. Another successful example from Serbia is the participation of Ilija M. Kolarac Foundation in the project Take over within which this cultural institution introduced a new advisory body named the Youth Board which helped in innovating the programme of this institution and approximating it to new generations of audience.

Participants of the debate listened with great attention to the speech of the representative of Creative Europe Desk and during the discussion that ensued after the presentation they presented some of their ideas for projects which could potentially obtain support of the Creative Europe programme. In this way at the debate in Aranđelovac project ideas could be heard that could cover the topics such as wine ceremonies and songs from Serbia, or innovation in researching the history of the Aranđelovac area. At the event, an invitation was extended to them to shape their ideas and participate in the next workshop of the Creative Europe Desk in August in Tršić where they could transform these ideas into actual projects.

The National Library “Sveti Sava” in Aranđelovac is one of the 48 members of EUTEKA network of libraries throughout Serbia cooperating with the Delegation of the European Union in Serbia in order to approximate the European Union and the process of accession of Serbia to the EU to Serbian citizens.