Creative Collaboration is a British Council project in partnership with artists, cultural leaders and creative entrepreneurs in 18 countries, including the UK.
The project uses innovative approaches to networking to encourage arts and cultural leaders from different countries and different art forms to talk together, learn from each other and develop new partnerships for effective cross-border working.
Launched in Istanbul last year and followed by five Open Space events, with support from the UK’s award-winning theatre group ‘Improbable’, the project is bringing together leading arts professionals to work on the issues that are most important to them. These include public space, arts and professional development, social inclusion, cultural leadership and creative cities.

What do we want to achieve?
We want to help the region’s artists and cultural leaders to develop the networks and skills they need to build a better society, support economic growth and enrich the cultural life of Europe and its surrounding countries.
What is Open Space?
‘The most useful part of the meeting was the discussion in the coffee break’. Have you ever felt like that after a meeting?
Open Space Technology works like one long coffee break. It is an unusual but highly effective way of getting people to work together because:

•All participants are invited to define the agenda and convene a session on the issue they feel is important

•Participants are then free to choose the sessions they want to attend and contribute to.

•Participants are passionate about the issues being discussed.

What happens to the networks we create?
We invited artists and cultural leaders to use the international networks they developed through the Open Spaces to apply to a new collaborative fund. This will support new collaborative projects involving two or more of the participating countries and the UK.
We are now in the second stage of application to the fund. Applicants who successfully passed the first stage have been invited to provide more detailed information. The deadline for the second stage is November 30th 2008.

Which countries are participating?
The countries participating are Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Georgia, Israel, Kosovo, Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and the UK.
For more information about the project please contact us on: Arts@britishcouncil.org.il