Projects

Ongoing work

• CreativeFLIP
  A project for the European Commission that started its third round of 2.5 years in 2024. FLIP stands for Financing, Learning, Innovation and Patenting (actually Intellectual Property). Within this project, I am working on two topics: the (poor) working conditions in the cultural and creative sector and access to financing.
  We have created a guide that clearly explains the steps you can take to achieve a good financing (mix) and an online portal with several hundred (both public and private) financing options: So you need money!. In the coming period, we will mainly work on examples of other forms of financing than subsidies, such as impact investing, lending, crowdfunding and possible combinations thereof.
  A new addition to the CreativeFLIP trunk is the online tool This is how we work. In this tool, we collect information about the working conditions of artists and other creative professionals from all 27 EU countries. This was launched in November 2023. In the coming years, we will work on further deepening the information and on exchanging experiences between the Member States.
  For CreativeFLIP, I am also part of an external advisory group of the Cyanotypes project, a three-year project that investigates which skills artists will need in the future.

• Platform ACCT
  Through Platform ACCT, I was part of a European working group of 27 countries that, in a two-year process, drew up an extensive report on employment relations, social security, learning and artistic freedom with clear recommendations for improving them. Because I am also part of CreativeFLIP, we succeeded in realizing the proposal for the online tool This is how we work on working conditions with the support of the Member States and the European Commission.
  For Platform ACCT, I am now working on monitoring information from Europe that may be relevant to their work and I am bringing their activities to the attention of the EU. In January 2024, we will organize an exchange meeting with people who are working on improving working conditions in other countries.
• The societal value of art
  Together with Henk Krijnen, we had discussions with key figures in the cultural sector about the social value of art, which in our opinion does not yet have the place in cultural policy that it deserves. This resulted in three joint opinion articles, in de Volkskrant, in the NRC and on the opinion platform Joop. I also wrote an article for Cultureel Kapitaal, the opinion blog of the LKCA, about strengthening the movement of socially involved artists. We are now developing a website on which we will place many examples of social activities of artists, podcasts and interviews.
• Risk management research
  The Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and the HKU are jointly conducting research into risk management. I once co-wrote the first (rejected) subsidy application. Risk management is an undervalued facet of managing and governing cultural organisations. The research will result in an online tool with which business leaders can identify and manage their most important risks.