4CNW

Delivered by The Creative State

What is the 4CNW progamme?

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4CNW - which stands for Creative Challenge Celtic Crescent North West - is a new transnational business innovation support programme, delivered by The Creative State North West, to develop the Creative Industries, and wider innovation ability, in the North West Region of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

4CNW aims to encourage knowledge exchange between companies through brokered matchmaking, to encourage better practice in demand-led innovation support, and to issue a competitive call for talent vouchers to facilitate the testing of new partnerships between creative businesses and four targeted industry sectors, all of which have been identified as high growth sectors in the north west; Life Sciences, Tourism, Technology and Agrifood, leveraging the fact that 8 out of 10 of the world’s leading companies in these sectors are based in Ireland. The €100,000 talent voucher fund will be used to motivate and incentivise practical collaboration between diverse sectors; and will leverage up to €100,000 in match funds

4CNW aims to drive new linkages between the creative sector and the four key industry sectors outlined above, demonstrating the role of creative industries in the wider eco-system of innovation and providing a new model for measuring their impact as a catalyst for economic growth. Furthermore, it is expected that 150 jobs will be safeguarded.

The initiative is the result of a successful collaboration between Sligo County Council and the Western Development Commission (WDC) who, together with local authority partners from Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo and Roscommon, entered a successful bid to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry.

This bid will see the project joining just 8 others on the newly established European Creative Industries Alliance (ECIA), and will see Ireland input to the ECIA learning platform along with just 11 other European countries.

Mobile App

The broader 4CNW programme will include an important new mobile app; a creative directory that will help Creative SME’s to find each other and to help them to be found by the broader business environment to forge partnerships for new work. We will give all registered companies the opportunity to be listed in this directory free of charge.

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