The Maastricht Symposium on the Creative Economy, which took place on 21 September 2015, was the first official meeting of minds in light of the Made2Measure (M2M) research project. M2M is commissioned by the Municipality of Maastricht and conducted under supervision of MACCH Steering Committee Member Prof. Dr. Rachel Pownall at Maastricht University's School of Business and Economics. The long-term goal of the project is to develop ways to measure both the economic and social return in the creative industries.

The Municipality of Maastricht has commissioned this research in order to obtain scientific background information on which to base policies with regard to the creative industries. Although the research is instignated by the Municipality of Maastricht and thus may seem to have a local view at first instinct, many aspects of the creative industries are not limited by regional or even national borders. Therefore, the symposium had an international orientation, with keynote speakers Carolyn Mair from London College of Fashion and Simeon Yates from the Institute of Cultural Capital in Liverpool. Still, the local aspect has not been disregarded as several key players in the creative economy of Maastricht were present to share their views.

The conclusions drawn during the symposium are two-fold. At first, policy-makers, but also people working in the creative field, need to realise that networks are what makes a creative hub. For policy-makers this means facilitating physical spaces in which people from different disciplines can come together in an informal way and connect with each other over their work and passions. For people employed in the creative sector, this means that they need to find others within the same discipline to develop and strengthen their skill-set, but also find those who have completely different skills which can complement theirs. For the Made2Measure team here lies a challenge to map the complete creative industry in the region, and to determine its magnitude. This is necessary to explore the full potential and to determine its growth or its decline over the coming years. In order to measure the impact of the local creative industries on the city, M2M also needs to consider the second conclusion drawn during the symposium, namely the need for alternative valuation methods.

In light of these conclusions, the next step for M2M is to research the type of financing used for the set-up of creative businesses. In the long-term, the goal is to develop ways to measure both the economic and social return in the creative industries. This will help different types of investors to see the added value of investing in these industries, in contrast to traditional valuation methods that only consider economic return.

For more information please contact Rachel Pownall or Anouk Duivenvoorden.