INTERREG Atlantic Area – Atlantic Youth Creative Hubs (AYCH)

The AYCH project will build a model of social innovation for young people supporting social entrepreneurship, employment and education in the creative and cultural industries, across the Atlantic Area. Central to the delivery of the project is the establishment of a network of transnational, connected and multidisciplinary hubs (existing space or empty space) that will stimulate idea generation, pre-start up and early stage business start-up support to young people both distanced from the labour market and those seeking a career, or self-employment in the creative sector. Addressing the market failure in the provision of youth service and start up support to young people that captures imagination and channels creativity into the creation of new products and services, the project will raise aspirations for enterprise, creating both social and economic capital, connecting employers to talent, supporting growth and jobs in the sector. The project expects to lower youth unemployment rates, in the partner areas, raise awareness of social enterprise as an option for business start-up, promoting responsible, sustainable entrepreneurship and improve youth services to create more dynamic, entrepreneurial, inspiring environments where young people can co-create, connect across borders and dramatically improve employability, providing vital incubation space and services to young entrepreneurs in the Creative and Cultural Industries.

The Atlantic Area still faces high youth unemployment rates, ranging from 6.1% in UK to 24.5% in Spain. The project will draw on Smart Specialisation capabilities in the creative and cultural industries across this area to boost entrepreneurship and aspirations for enterprise and education in creative, digital and technological fields - recognised growth areas, in the Atlantic Area. Member States face heightened pressure to find new models of commissioning public services, making them more viable and reliant on more diverse revenue streams. AYCH represents the opportunity to provide a model that is both scalable and transferrable to cities in the Atlantic Area, based on financial and skill support from a wide range of stakeholders and income opportunities from incubation & social enterprise activities that will ensure a sustainable operational model is achieved before the end of the funding period. SME growth features predominantly in the integrated Atlantic Action Plan and Europe 2020, using key enabling technologies, creativity and knowledge-led growth the project aims to create new business starts, as well as jobs in the creative sector. Collaboration between universities, NGOs, public and private bodies remains an underexploited opportunity for the Atlantic Area. AYCH will respond to this, connecting territories & sectors fostering innovation in young people, linking SMEs to new talent and knowledge, as well as technology transfer from HEIs to SMEs and young people.

AYCH will use creativity as a means to engage young people, capitalising on their untapped talent, harnessing their potential for economic and social development. With a major focus on social entrepreneurship, with innovation as a crosscutting principle, the project will go beyond the current market offer, in the Atlantic programme area. By reaching out to new target audiences, young people will be engaged in pre-start up and commercial activities that will empower them and present opportunities in creative and techbased applications, giving skills that will ease access to the job market, self-employment or education. Existing enterprises will also benefit from this new offer. The multi-stakeholder approach of AYCH will facilitate knowledge and technology transfer from different organisations, allowing for an integrated ecosystem of innovation and support to be built around the hubs, going further than the current incubation models that mostly centre on the space itself and a limited number of services that support entrepreneurs. Another original aspect of this project is that the hubs themselves will be mainly located outside of the major metropolitan areas of the Member States, servicing areas that are not currently able to access any existing

hubs that are principally located in major cities. This is an important consideration when looking at the needs for balanced and sustainable territorial development, promoting skills retention and building thriving local economies.

Creativity relies on a mix of different approaches, techniques, tools and people. Therefore, a transnational, interdisciplinary approach will allow for far greater impact and for the hugely important dimension of broad horizons. What’s more, young people and indeed young entrepreneurs tend to focus their efforts locally, yet markets and skills are becoming increasingly globalised. The AYCH project will allow these young people to experience co-creation, in a transnational setting, in transnational teams, to jointly stimulate new ideas and identify market opportunities, at a transnational scale. The skills, technology and knowledge will be shared at transnationally across the network of connected hubs, through virtual and physical workshops, seminars and the business challenges being responded to by the young entrepreneurs. This will connect a talent pool across the Atlantic Area that can be supported either into jobs, internships, self-employment or education, as a result. By creating a model of connected creative hubs for young people across the Atlantic Area there is the ability to scale the project and transfer to other locations, maximising the impact and allowing for real sustainability of the activities and outputs, working jointly to connect experts and transfer best practice across partner organisations.

Partners are -

Devon County Council United Kingdom

Plymouth College of Art United Kingdom

Space – Exeter 100 Club United Kingdom

Plymouth City Council United Kingdom

Plymouth Culture United Kingdom

Pacificstream United Kingdom

Brest Métropole France

Ayuntamiento de Gijón Spain

Ashton Community Trust United Kingdom

Grand Angoulême France

Vida Lactea Spain

Conference of Atlantic Arc Cities France

Câmara Municipal de Santo Tirso Portugal

CARENE -Saint-NazaireAgglomération France

L’Ecole de design Nantes Atlantique France