Wallonia European Creative District

After three years of implementation of the Creative Wallonia programme, Wallonia has been distinguished by the EU as a "European Creative District" and created the WECD project. The Public Service of Wallonia (DG06), Boost-up/Industries créatives (operated by Wallonie Design), St’Art Invest, the Wallonia Agency for Digitalization and ID Campus (involved in the field of education) as well as the clusters Twist (media) and ICT- Infopôle have worked together to enhance the potential of creative industries to lead a region in industrial transition to a creative economy. In accordance with their respective skills, the partners of the WECD project built a four-axes action programme: Creative skills, Better Business Support, Better Financial Support, Facilitating clusters and networking activities. WECD has been unique in its management processes. The ambition was to implement the creative methodologies supported by the CCI within a public policy learning project. The project ensured cross-collaboration within the project Consortium and at the European level in order to strengthen the relevance and the effectiveness of the whole project. Collective intelligence and iterative process evaluation were also ingredients in the recipe for success. By testing actions, tools, new ways of thinking, working and learning, WECD has managed to improve Wallonia’s global CCI strategy and to raise global awareness about the potential of the creative industries and the creative economy.