EUNIC General Assembly in Brussels
During a busy and fruitful few days EUNIC held its General Assembly in Brussels on 2 and 3 December. Whilst hybrid, the majority of colleagues were able to join live. The network was introduced to new pilot projects for European Spaces of Culture, the selected projects for the 2021 EUNIC Cluster Fund and welcomed the new EUNIC Cluster in El Salvador.
New projects selected for European Spaces of Culture and EUNIC Cluster Fund
During the General Assembly EUNIC announced the selection of 11 new pilot projects of phase two of our European Spaces of Culture project as well as the results of the 2021 EUNIC Cluster Fund funding (with 23 initiatives being funded around the world). EUNIC also approved the creation of a new cluster in El Salvador, bringing the global total of clusters now to 133.
Fair Collaboration updates
The freelance expert consortium preparing EUNIC’s toolkit on Fair Collaboration gave an overview of their process and the materials they will be delivering at the end of the year to drive further refection and action on topics relating to fairness in international cultural relations. In addition, EUNIC celebrated the successful awarding of a new Creative Europe network grant to EUNIC and refreshed the priority topics and needs of our members within EUNIC.
Next steps for EU international cultural relations
The meeting was joined by senior EU colleagues from DG INTPA, DG EAC and the EEAS, along with leading external experts Gijs de Vries (London School of Economics) and Carla Figueira (Goldsmiths University) to analyse together the implementation of the EU’s strategic approach to international cultural relations and to look at next steps together with EUNIC in terms of our ongoing Administrative Arrangement with the EU to support culture in external relations.
Behavioral Change Scientist Pireeni Sundaralingam joined digitally from San Francisco and gave a thought-provoking talk on ‘digital, the new public sphere: trust, understanding and the brain’.
