Cultural Activities Innovation and Production Systems

1. Cultural Activities Innovation and Production Systems Helena M. M Lastres e Marcelo Matos RedeSist - www.redesist.ie.ufrj.br II Workshop Hotel Glória - Rio de Janeiro 27 de abril de 2007

2. Cultural Activities • Mobilize a vast number of workers, entrepreneurs and SME’s • Their development is far less dependent on scarce resources • Are strategic for fostering and strengthening cultural contents, creativity, entrepreneurship and innovativeness in different spatial and social levels • Have a strategic character because of their power to represent, reinforce and diffuse ideas, styles of life, social values and identities

3. Cultural Activities • Represent an important instrument for the promotion of local development, inclusively in poorer regions • Are playing a central role in public and private policies aiming at the modernization and development of many countries. Emphasis is given to the case of the UK, with the creation of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport – DCMS

4. The weight of Cultural Activities • Growth of cultural activities in the world: nearly 7% of world GDP and expected growth rate of 10% per year (Unesco, 2006) • Brazil: 1 – 3 % of GDP – 510 thousand (0,8%) people formally employed (Minc, 2006) (printed matter and literature; music; visual arts; cinema and photography; television and radio; advertising; and games)

5. Total cultural activities US$ 28 million  10.1% of value added in economy (excluding government and financial sector)

6. Selected Cultural Activities in Brazil – 2000 – US$ million

7. Local Innovative and Productive Systems centered on Cultural Activities • Objective: analyze productive and innovative systems focused on cultural activities • Importance • Geographic and social proximity and of the cultural identity as sources of diversity and competitive advantages

8. Knowledge and learning processes • Specific “cultural knowledge base” (tacit character) – associated with values, habits etc. • Specific character of tacit (cultural) knowledge transmission – informal networks • Emphasis on learning derived from day-by-day experience (learning-by-doing e learning-by-using) • Importance of interaction for learning / transmission of knowledge across generations  long term sustainability

9. Impact of new technologies • Growth of Cultural activities associated with diffusion of ICTs • Creative possibilities • Improvements in production and reproduction • Impact on industry structure: • multimedia oligopolies • market fragmentation and concentration • crisis and reshaping of IPR

10. Public policies • Culture as a “merit good” (education, identity, etc)  argument in favor of public support • Start-up infrastructure  “Points of Culture” program • Subventions and fiscal incentives the Rouanet Law; Audiovisual Law • Trade – the “cultural exception”

11. Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro • Internationally known attraction. It mobilizes several activities in the manufacturing and in the service sector – especially audiovisual, tourism and entertainment • Spectacle in February but carnival is a 365 days industry • Annual inflow of about R$ 1 billion (US$ 467 million) • Employing only during the month of the festivity directly 77 thousand people(high informality) • Including related activities (tourism and parade infrastructure) this number rises to almost 500 thousand people with temporary or permanent jobs related to carnival during the year

12. Formal and informal training initiatives Cultural organisations Sponsors Suppliers of specialized materials Suppliers of raw materials Services Coordination/Support Associations Local Government RIOTUR Core The samba-schools Creation and “production” of the spectacle Intermediaries (Responsible for costumes) Tertiarized production of costumes THE PARADE Clients (participants) • Tourism • Lodging • Alimentation • Transport • Etc. catering • Services at the parade • Sound and lightening • Alimentation • Security • Cleaning • Transport • Etc. Media - Live transmission - Recorded Music - CDs with samba-enredos - Radio - Other reproduction

13. Why the IS and LIPSs approaches have attracted attention as a tool to understand and to orient innovation? • Take into account the different geopolitical context of the different national systems • Are broader, more flexible and advanced concepts than those on individual organizations, sectors, industrial complexes, production chains and agglomerations • Focus on the context where learning, capacity building and innovation processes take place • Allow for the design and implementation of more adequate public and private policies to promote these processes

14. Why the IS and LIPSs approaches has attracted attention as a tool to understand and to orient innovation? New form of thinking and orienting production and innovation development that also focus on groups of actors, activities and dimensions that • are usually neglected in analytical and policy efforts • because their importance can not be ignored • Social and political actors • Activities in the primary and tertiary sector • SMEs, traditional knowledge and gender • Micro, meso and macro-economic dimensions • Informal actors and activities – firms, processes of knowledge acquisition and transmission

15. RedeSist’s experience in using the IS and LIPS approach in cultural based activities Main challenges are also the advantages • capture, measure, reveal and include in research and policy agendas cases that are generally excluded and even invisible • intangibility + informality + novelty • also true in the case of traditional knowledge, gender and many other issues Learning effects deriving from • putting the approach into practice • forms of understanding and using analytical and normative approaches reflect and depend on previously accumulated experience and capacities • interaction between researchers and policy-makers

16. RedeSist’s experience in using the IS and LIPS approach in cultural based activities (CBAs) It is indeed worth developing and using approaches that - among other things - allow investigating • The role of traditional knowledge, gender, inequalities and informality in the innovation systems of BRICS • CBAs and other forms of cultural manifestations • these present serious and important alternatives that are usually ignored both in the development research and policy agenda “Povos que amam a festa, além de dizerem não àguerra oferecem alternativas que merecem ser seriamente consideradas”

17. Helena M. M. Lastres hlastres@ie.ufrj.br Marcelo Matos marcelo@redesist.ie.ufrj.br RedeSist Av. Pasteur, 250 – sala 107 Urca - Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 22290-240 - Brasil www.redesist.ie.ufrj.br Tel: (55) (21) 3873-5279 Fax: (55) (21) 3873-5278