European Union Launches New Global Cultural Leadership Programme

The European Commission's new “Strategy for international cultural relations” is being supported by a new Cultural Diplomacy Platform, which aims to enhance the EU's cultural engagement with non-member states and their citizens through various activities.

The EC´s new strategy aims to encourage cultural cooperation between the EU, EU member states and the EU's partners in promoting a global order which would be based on peace, the rule of law, freedom of expression, mutual understanding and respect of fundamental values.

The EU High Representative and Vice-President Federica Mogherini expressed her belief in culture as a powerful tool to build bridges between people, to help to fight radicalisation and to build an alliance of civilisations. That is why, according to her, cultural diplomacy must be at the core of the EU's relationship with today's world.

Part of this strategy is the New Cultural Diplomacy Platform which aims to address the managerial practicalities of establishing sustainable cultural exchange, of building long term collaborations based on contacts among people and in engaging in productive co-creation processes.

The Global Cultural Leadership Programme represents a training component of this new platform because it is designed to develop and strengthen cultural leadership skills of young practitioners emerging on the international scene. Its goal is to improve the skills of cultural managers as well as to develop collaborative peer-to-peer network building. Since it is practice based learning, it gives the participants opportunities to build meaningful collaborations at the EU level and the global level. The participants will learn new tools and develop cultural leadership skills and the programme will offer them the means to engage more efficiently in international cultural cooperation.

The programme is connecting ten participants from EU member states and 30 from the ten strategic partners of the EU (Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and the USA).

The programme is organized in cooperation with the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies in parallel to its 7th World Summit on Arts and Culture that focuses on cultural leadership in the 21st century.

It takes place in Valletta, Malta during the second week of October. However, the deadline for applications is the 1st of August, so do not hesitate to visit page of European Union National Institutes for Culture to learn more.