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.
Selection of completed projects
- European Parliament
In 2024, there were elections for the European Parliament and a large part of the members of parliament are new. In order to support the completely different composition of the CULT committee, we wrote a report with a number of partners and experts. This report describes the cultural and media policy of the past 5 years and identifies the most important topics and challenges for the next 5 years. Important points of attention are: integrating cultural policy into other policy areas to allow art and culture to contribute to social issues, ensuring that the sector becomes stronger (working conditions, financing, recognition) and creating safe places for artistic collaboration and community building.
In 2021, we also wrote a report for the European Parliament, this was about the consequences of the Covid crisis for the sector while we were still in the middle of it. - Impulse funds KunstLOC Brabant
For years I was an advisor to the committee that assessed applications for the Impulse Funds Scheme. A great scheme because it was mainly about the development that artists and cultural institutions wanted to go through, the collaboration with other social sectors had a place and because you entered into discussions with the applicants. Unfortunately, the province of Brabant ended this scheme at the end of 2023. - Rotterdam
In the previous subsidy period, I was part of the Integral Committee for the four-year subsidy applications of the municipality of Rotterdam. This was then carried out by the RRKC. The municipality took over this process and withdrew the subsidy for RRKC.