Monday, 22 September
CSW 2025 Online Programme
*All session times are listed in Central European Summer Time (CEST)
Online Programme
09:00 – 10:00
Design Strategies for a Sustainable Future: A Collaborative Model for Sustainability Education in Design
“Design Strategies for a Sustainable Future” is a transdisciplinary initiative led by Professor Natalie Weinmann and Franziska Ritz at Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
This project integrates sustainability education, industry collaboration, and community engagement through three interconnected components: a student collaboration with VAUDE, a sustainable outdoor gear company, the OUTDOOR publication, and the OUTDOOR event. The initiative empowers students to engage in the process of poiesis, actively designing outcomes that transform the world around them. The project emphasises that design is not merely a creative act but a powerful tool for creating meaningful, impactful change. Students worked closely with VAUDE to address sustainable product challenges, exploring materials, product lifecycles, and user needs.
The OUTDOOR publication curate student projects alongside expert contributions, expanding discourse on sustainability practices in design. The OUTDOOR event facilitated public engagement, hosting panel discussions, workshops, and dialogues on sustainability. This initiative underscores the need for education that is transdisciplinary, immersive, and socially engaged.
Inspired by Donna Haraway’s concept of “staying with the trouble,” it encourages students to confront and engage with the complexities of sustainability challenges rather than seeking simple solutions. Through these experiences, students are empowered to act as agents of change, gaining a deeper understanding of design’s role in addressing global sustainability issues.
The project will contribute to the Creative Skills Week 2025, showcasing its methodologies and insights into how design education can foster transdisciplinary collaboration, critical thinking, and community engagement. This session will highlight how sustainability in design can be integrated into academic curricula, share practical strategies for academia-industry partnerships, and open a discourse on how this can inspire educators, students, and professionals to drive transformative change in global sustainability efforts.
10:00 – 11:00
Imaginaries in Transition Creative- and artistic methods as Key Skills for Societal Challenges
Hosted by CoECI – Centre of Expertise Creative Innovation
This session explores imagination as a key skill in addressing societal and spatial challenges. The ideas we hold about places and others—often shaped by shared imaginaries—determine who is included, how institutions make decisions, and which futures are considered possible. We reflect on the creative skills needed to engage with these imaginaries: how are futures imagined, and how are they constrained by dominant ideas? And how can imagination open up space for inclusion, change, and new ways of living together?
Janna Oud Ammerveld and Mike de Kreek, two postdoctoral researchers in the SPRONG Imaginaries in Transition program, share insights from their practice-based research in communities, institutions, and urban contexts.
They examine how change takes place— sometimes visibly and disruptively, sometimes slowly and incrementally. Transition is not only about redesigning, but also about letting go and beginning again. Change is not always linear or visible; it can be slow, layered, and uncertain. In such processes, imagination becomes a crucial tool—for navigating uncertainty, questioning existing frameworks, and making new futures imaginable.
Participants are invited to reflect on how imagination can be mobilised as a practical and critical skill—and how these methods can support reskilling, education innovation, and policy development. They examine how these approaches can be embedded in education and professional development.
11:00 – 12:30
Empowering networks with digital skills: reusing digital heritage of Europeana and capacity building practices from Una Europa researchers
The Una Europa university alliance through the TRT2 ‘Heritage and the digitization of society’ coordinated by the Complutense University of Madrid and the Europeana Network Association join forces to co-organise an online community webinar on the framework of the Creative Week 2025 aimed to inspire on the reuse of digital heritage assets from Europeana, the European’s digital heritage platform, as part of your daily activities.
This webinar is addressed to the Una Europa students and researchers from 11 universities across Europe what Europeana can offer to them and connect with the Europeana Network Association community members of Education and Research coming across the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) sector, informal education or formal education as schools, high schools and higher education to develop projects together in the university alliance and beyond across Europe.
During this event, the participants will learn what Europeana is and the possibilities for education and research of their items applied to different projects and activities. It explores how curatorial activities can be used for enhance the creativity in the university, how cultural institutions, higher education and digital heritage platform can work together, how new tools as the immersive worlds or the metaverse can be also nourish from digital heritage through educational projects and finally how a research on digital skills mapping can foster capacity building of a network.
12:30 – 13:30
The role of social dialogue in enhancing access to training in the cultural and creative sectors
The webinar will highlight examples from different EU countries of access to and funding of lifelong learning opportunities through collective bargaining or other social dialogue initiatives in the cultural and creative sectors.
Hosted by Creative Skills Europe
13:00 – 15:00
Contextualising "skill" in arts education within an EDI framework
Hosted by ELIA Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) Working Group
What is “skill”? From what position are we teaching? How does this expose or challenge power structures?
This session investigates the entrenched power dynamics between pedagogue and student, exploring how canons within the cultural and creative sectors influence that relationship. The session will question how we define artistic skill and transmit knowledge. Rather than centring traditional teacher-student roles, we examine how structures of learning reflect broader power relations, mirroring those in equity, diversity, and inclusion.
What happens when we shift our focus from equality to equity, from equity to understanding, and from understanding to accountability, and what skill(s) would this require? As we question what counts as a skill, we also ask: Is the ability to think critically, to ask the right questions, itself a skill? The conversation becomes more complex when terms like “skills” and “competences”, terms that are deeply entangled in national contexts, educational systems, and social histories are introduced.
How can we support each other while remaining specific and grounded in our own standpoints? Can we speak from where we stand, yet still stay open to other perspectives? What kinds of skills make that possible? And can we speak of skills in a unified way across such diverse social and cultural terrains?
This session challenges participants to recognise and interrogate bias within themselves, within institutions, and within the structures that shape pedagogy. Through the lens of artistic practice and inclusive methodology, we explore how skill development might become less about standardisation and more about fostering responsiveness, reflection, and relational awareness.
15:00 – 16:00
Creative Europe Programme
Hosted by Creative Europe Desk CZ & NL
What can the EU offer the cultural and creative sectors? Which funding is available under the Creative Europe programme, what are the priorities and how can you write a strong application? During this session, participants will get an introduction to the Creative Europe programme, especially the Creative Europe Culture subprogramme, which focuses on international collaboration for the cultural and creative sectors (excluding the audiovisual sector, which is covered by Creative Europe MEDIA).
16:00 – 18:30
Mapping the Creative Skills Gap in Greece and Cyprus
Greece and Cyprus are renowned for their rich cultural heritage, artistic legacy, and creative talent. However, amidst this cultural wealth, there exists a critical need to bridge the gap between the skills demanded by the sector and those available in the workforce. This event will explore the pressing need to close the skills gap while fostering a more inclusive and accessible creative ecosystem in Greece and Cyprus. By bringing together key stakeholders from academia, industry, government, and civil society, we will highlight best practices in promoting diversity and inclusion within the creative industries. This event builds on the results of the CulturePolis Roundtable in the Creative Skills Week 2024.
Local Event in Prague
Organised by the Capital City of Prague (Cultural Dept.) and Creative Prague
14:30 – 17:00
Prague CCSI Strategy - Focus Group on Skills
As part of the preparation of the Prague CCSI Strategy, a focus group dedicated to the topic of education and skills in the context of the cultural and creative sectors will be held within the Creative Skills Week framework. The session will take place on Monday, 22 September, in the afternoon.
The focus group aims to map existing needs, challenges, and opportunities related to creative education and skills development at various levels — from formal education to lifelong learning and professional development, acceleration and incubation, to EU programmes. Together with practitioners, educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders, we will discuss how the city and public sector can find their place and target their support in the best possible way, to foster talent development, strengthen creative competencies, and ensure better links between education and practice.
The discussion and outcomes will support the creation of the CSSI Strategy of the Capital City of Prague, which is currently under development by the City of Prague and Creative Prague.
Please note: This is an invite-only session, organised by the Capital City of Prague (Cultural Department) and Creative Prague.
