Founded in 2004, the Districts of Creativity (DC) Network unites regions around the world to share and develop practices on stimulating cross-disciplinary creativity in society to foster innovation and prosperity. Our international orientation makes us a unique network of regions that put creativity and innovation high on the agenda. From the USA to China and Scotland to India, the Districts of Creativity network spans the globe and continues to grow.
Our mission
The core mission of the DC network is to make a more prosperous world through harnessing the power of interdisciplinary creativity. We do this by bringing people together from across the globe and from various domains to promote and use the power of creative thinking and to identify new ways of combining knowledge, technology and resources.
Creativity, innovation & entrepreneurship
The DC members believe the combination of creativity/creative industries, technology/science and entrepreneurship is a major source of prosperity and growth. Creativity is what makes people, companies, and regions unique. It offers the capacity to find innovative solutions to challenges in society. It allows to create new products, services or processes and contributes to the creation of economic value and to the general well being of people.
Creative industries
The DC members see the creative industries as one of the key sectors for the future. As a hotbed for creativity, sectors such as design, fashion, gaming, media, arts… have the potential to act as driver for innovation through co-creation.
Global connection
The DC members believe that the future world is a connected one. The network wants to connect the minds of different disciplines and stimulate co-creation. Different cultural perspectives help lead to solutions with a global reach.
How do we do this?
We bring together a network of global regions recognized for their achievements in innovation, as defined in our vision. We continuously scan the world for regions that see and support innovation as the combination of creativity in technology, business & society and the arts & creative industries.
We organize an annual Creativity World Forum in one of the DC regions. The forum aims to bring together at least 1500 people from the whole of the network and is focused on multidisciplinary collaboration. It’s the organizing member’s privilege to determine theme, focus and approach. Every DC member participates with a relevant delegation.
Every year one DC member invites policy makers and intermediate organisations in the field of creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation from other DC members to a study visit. The organising member determines the content and length of this Reverse Mission. Every DC member participates with a relevant delegation.
To connect with future creative talents, we organise each year a DCLivingLab, an international student workshop on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.
To foster knowledge exchange and network opportunities we organise online DC Network Meetups on specific topics.
We initiate bi- or multilateral projects among the members to share or create insights, tools and programs to facilitate this collaboration.
