News from Berlin

Berlin’s Creative Industries

October 27th, 2014
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News from Berlin - Having attended the ‘2014 Berlin Research Symposium on Culture and Creative Industries’ on October 23rd, Berlin Global has become inspired to delve into this topic further, and concentrate on bringing you a more in-depth understanding of creative industries in Berlin.

Over the last few years, the culture and creative industries have become a major economic force throughout the world. In the UK, a ‘Minister for Creative Industries’ was appointed in 2005, France has set up comprehensive special framework programmes, and in 2006 the European Commission published a 300-page study on the economic importance of the cultural sector.

In Germany, the value of goods and services produced in the creative industries achieved a value of 58 billion euros in 2004. From 2011 to 2012, the creative sector in Berlin alone was reported to have contributed roughly 32 billion euros in profit and employed more than 240,000 individuals. The creative industries in Berlin are set to be Berlin’s most promising economic sector.

Berlin is home to many young artists and entrepreneurs who have worked hard to make a difference through their start-up firms, founded on creativity, innovation and digital technology. The creative industries in Berlin include clubs, gaming, fine arts, performance arts, city development, music, TV, radio, film, newspapers, magazines, books, communications, advertising agencies, design and fashion.

Although Berlin has many success stories about start-up firms surviving the intense competition, the difficulty has been that many firms of the creative industries have struggled to gain funding for their projects. Many of these start-ups are being funded by the founders themselves, who have taken a risk in order to hopefully profit from this thriving sector. However, for those who are unable to fund themselves, many difficulties ensue.

When the European Ministers for Culture and the Media met in Berlin in February 2007, a great number of European states pressed for more emphasis on the topic. For the first time in decades, cultural and creative industries have gained priority on the European agenda – an excellent opportunity to present the German cultural and creative industries to the interested European public.

The German Federal Government and the German Parliament – as well as the European Commission – have a great variety of expectations of the creative industries.

The ‘2014 Berlin Research Symposium on Culture and Creative Industries’ has really opened our eyes to the opportunities and benefits of the culture and creative industries. Economic and cultural diversity is one of the greatest strengths of German culture industries and it will be interesting to see how this sector will progress in the future.

For more information about the culture and creative industries in Germany, please refer to this publication from UNESCO:

http://www.unesco.de/fileadmin/medien/Dokumente/Bibliothek/culture_and_creative_industries.pdf

News from Berlin – Berlin Global