Shared Initiatives for Training
Climate change, gender equality and inclusion of minorities are key challenges for our rapidly changing world. Arts and culture have a recognised role in shaping societies and have the potential to significantly contribute to a better and more sustainable future for all as recognised in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The project SHIFT provides training offers for cultural leaders, working together and creating paths to face such global challenges. Implementing changes where needed and passing on the gained knowledge to leaders and staff members, of cultural networks and the broader cultural sector.
The partners produced online manuals, guidelines and excerpts translated in French and Italian during two years (December 2019-January 2022) on the following themes:
Cultural Leadership
Co-development and Co-creation Methodologies
Participatory Governance
Organisational Change and Evolution
Evaluation and Impact Assessment
Environmental Sustainability
Certification Scheme for Cultural Networks and Platforms
Key Resources
Carbon Calculators
Climate Adaptation
Gender & Power-relations
Key Resources
Main Observations
Recommendations for European Cultural Networks
Case Studies – Stories of Change
Inclusion
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging – Key Concepts and Culture
Inclusive Governance: People, Policies and Processes
Making Communications more Inclusive
Holding Inclusive Events
"The EMC is proud to have been the coordinator of SHIFT, which enhanced shifts already happening and also paved the way for more and new changes. We are very happy to finally be able to share with you the results of our hard work. Working together on subjects that are close to our hearts with great partners has been an incredibly enriching learning experience and a wonderful cooperation."
"Without playing too much with words, the SHIFT project has really allowed us to shift our mindset and more importantly our practices on key transversal issues that we were either involved with (mobility and environmental sustainability), gender issues (with a stronger focus put on sexual harassment in the arts and cultural sector in Europe) or inclusion / accessibility particularly with regards to our publications and website. The best award for us is that the work is still to be continued on those issues through ongoing projects and/or conversations particularly with colleagues and friends from European cultural networks."
"SHIFT has been such a rich and empowering journey - I think all the partners grew during this collaborative experience: we could deepen our relationships and mutual understanding as well as work closely together on how to best address SDGs and how to support progress in such important global issues. We were very pleased to engage in this learning process and create what we think are concrete, useful and relevant tools to help both ourselves and other European cultural organisations embrace structural change. It might be the end of the project but it feels as we are starting an entirely new chapter in our development, this project really helped us to put things in motion, to “walk the talk”. The different phases of the project, from research and data collection steps to training activities, the regular sharing of takeaways with the Culture field led to deliver outputs that are meaningful and robust, that can be easily contextualized and adopted. We had at heart always keep in mind the many nuances, contexts or backgrounds of future users while to delving into complex issues such as gender-based violence or climate action.”
"We need to create easy and useable outputs in this inspiring and multi-layered project. We shift from the personal, to the organisational and towards transnational level: from within to without. Setting the rules and framework on how we will work together is important as we should absolutely avoid that there would be a permanent conflict. How can we set up rules and what would we do in case of a conflict? This project SHIFT will be transformative for our whole cultural sector!"
"The SHIFT project connects to ELIA’s strategic focus and therefore touches the core of what our network is all about. In that sense, training with colleagues has been transformational. The most important aspect may have been the focus on the topic of leadership, as leadership is crucial with regard to the SDGs and implementing change."
"SHIFT has been an important process and project where nine networks joint forces and worked towards valuable improvements for our cultural sector."
"I am very happy that I had the great opportunity to work on the SHIFT project with cultural leaders from top European organisations. Even though it was not easy to adapt to the changes that the COVID crisis brought, I had wonderful colleagues that helped with cheering up my mood during online meetings and made it feel almost like we were discussing face to face. I got encouraged to think outside the box when facing difficult situations. All this helped me in expanding my horizons. In this two years journey, I learned a lot about topics that EMCY was not considering as a priority and changed our objectives towards more sustainable, inclusive and equitable projects."
"The SHIFT project gave us the opportunity to delve into cultural leadership and 3 SDGs that represent critical topics for our sector and the world. These topics have only grown in importance over the course of the project. The knowledge and skills we gained have empowered us to lay the path for training in our sector with the aim of promoting a process of positive change."
"SHIFT had a real impact on our organisation, its vision and actions. We have learned a lot and we are already implementing the lessons learned for a deep structural change."