How a European knowledge exchange is creating opportunities for cross-sector collaboration and creative entrepreneurship.
What role can creative hubs play beyond supporting artists and cultural professionals? A peer-to-peer mentoring and job-shadowing exchange in Matera, Italy, offered an opportunity to explore how creativity can connect with entrepreneurship, education and social innovation.
Sandra Bernytė, Director of the Užupis Art Incubator (UMI) in Vilnius, visited Materahub, an organisation supporting creative entrepreneurship and cross-sector collaboration. Organised through the European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN), the exchange provided an opportunity to learn from Materahub’s approach and explore how its experience could inform UMI’s future development.
Under the mentorship of Paolo Montemurro, Director of Materahub, Bernytė explored how the organisation builds relationships between cultural and creative professionals, businesses, educational institutions and social-sector organisations.
One of the key learnings was the importance of looking beyond the creative industries themselves. By connecting people with different expertise, resources and perspectives, creative hubs can facilitate collaboration and help develop responses to wider economic and social challenges.
This approach positions creativity not only as a cultural activity, but also as a resource for entrepreneurship, innovation and community development. It also highlights the role creative hubs can play as intermediaries, creating connections between sectors that might otherwise operate separately.
For UMI, the exchange provided an opportunity to reflect on how cross-sector collaboration could contribute to the development of Vilnius's creative ecosystem.
Building stronger relationships with businesses, educational institutions, public authorities and other organisations could create new opportunities for resident artists and creative professionals. It could also help connect artistic practice with entrepreneurial skills and wider social, economic and environmental challenges.
One potential outcome discussed during the visit was cooperation between Materahub and UMI on the development of a Creative Entrepreneurship Program in Vilnius. The initiative could bring international expertise into the local ecosystem, offering emerging creative professionals access to mentoring, entrepreneurial knowledge and interdisciplinary networks.
While this cooperation remains a possibility to be explored, it represents a starting point for considering how UMI could expand its role beyond providing space and support for artists towards facilitating broader connections between creativity, business and innovation.
The exchange also highlighted the value of European networks in supporting the development of creative hubs. Programmes such as ECHN's peer-learning and job-shadowing initiative allow hub leaders to share practical experience, explore different organisational approaches and identify opportunities for future cooperation.
These exchanges can help organisations reflect on their own practices and adapt ideas from other contexts to their local needs. They also create opportunities to develop relationships that may lead to joint initiatives and longer-term partnerships.
During the visit, discussions extended beyond organisational practices to include perspectives from education, entrepreneurship and international collaboration. Bernytė also expressed her appreciation to Prof. Fabrizio Festa of the Conservatorio di Matera, Alina Dumitru, Satu-Maarit Veikkola, Sirja Lepistö and Gabriella Antezza for their contributions to the exchange.
Although Vilnius and Matera have distinct cultural contexts and creative ecosystems, the exchange revealed shared interests in connecting creativity with entrepreneurship, innovation and social development.
For UMI, the experience reinforced the importance of developing stronger cross-sector partnerships and creating opportunities for creative professionals to develop entrepreneurial skills and collaborate beyond the cultural sector.
The potential cooperation with Materahub offers an opportunity to translate these learnings into practical initiatives in Vilnius. More broadly, the exchange demonstrates how international peer learning can help creative hubs strengthen their local ecosystems while building connections across Europe.
By bringing together different forms of knowledge and expertise, creative hubs can create new opportunities for collaboration and help transform artistic potential into wider cultural, economic and social value.
