The Basque Country may be small but it has a big identity. With over 5,000 years of history, it conserves a unique culture and the oldest language in Europe. Nowadays industry is the driving force of the Basque economy, accounting for 21.7% of GDP. By joining the Districts of Creativity Network the region aims at improving its international collaboration strategy for cultural and creative industries and share their experiences.
Founded in 2004, the DC Network unites regions around the world that focus on cross-disciplinary creativity and innovation to improve prosperity. 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.
“Being part of a stable network such as DC Network means taking an important qualitative step in the international collaboration strategies of the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) of the Basque Country.”
Josean Urdangarin – Basque government
The Basque Country will be represented by the Department of Culture and Linguistic Policy of the Basque government in the DC Network. “Being part of a stable network such as DC Network means taking an important qualitative step in the international collaboration strategies of the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) of the Basque Country, says Josean Urdangarin of the Basque government, who will be the key contact person within the DC Network for the region.
“I hope that by joining the network we will be able to share the experiences of the Basque CCI sector and companies, on the one hand, and better understand and open channels of collaboration with the members of the network, on the other, with the common objective of addressing processes of innovative cross fertilisation”
In the Basque case, with an important level of cultural and linguistic specialization, the development of the creative economy is growing, opening up new channels of exchange and potential markets that have not been developed until now.
