Titled “The Difference that Makes the Difference”, this year’s Creative Skills Week (CSW) was co-organised by EIT Culture and Creativity, CYANOTYPES project, and Creative Futures Academy, in collaboration with the Creative Pact for Skills, CREDEX and the GreenCCIrcle projects.
Hosted by LUCA School of Arts and ICHEC Brussels Management School, this major event took place in Brussels (BE) between September 7th and 9th, 2026, gathering more than 300 participants around the concept of creative confidence, i.e., “the capacity to turn creative thinking into action”.
Aimed to collaboratively address how can creative skills and creative agency help Educators and leaders of the Cultural and Creative Industry sectors (CCIs) adapting to change, solving problems, and creating new opportunities for innovation, sustainability, competitiveness, and resilience, the Creative Skills Week 2026 gathered not only these stakeholders, but also Policy Makers (including the Georg Häusler, Director for Culture, Creativity and Sport in the European Commission (DG EAC), and Barbara Stacher, Senior Expert, Cultural Policy at DG EAC), in high-level debates, parallel thematic sessions and also networking moments.
Furthermore, now that the project is concluded (August 31st, 2026), this fourth edition of the CSW was an opportunity to highlight CYANOTYPES, its Framework, and the results achieved with all the 60 pilots carried out by VET schools, Universities and CCIs organisations, including Lviv National Academy of Arts in Ukraine, represented in the Conference by its Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs and Research.
AI and Creativity: How can the VET sector support the CCSIs addressing the AI revolution?
Hosted by EIT Culture & Creativity, the CSW’s “AI and Creativity” session aimed to address how different stakeholders are working on the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the CCIs, more specifically how the sector can actively shape and position itself within the urgent transition towards a human-centred AI future.
EfVET was invited by EIT Culture & Creativity to integrate the panel of speakers of this session, and to provide the VET perspective about these issues.
Faced with the impact of AI on what creative professionals do and how they do it, there is the need to integrate AI into creative work without losing human capabilities that generate cultural, social and economic value (e.g., creativity, originality, critical judgement, cultural awareness, craftsmanship and human agency).
In this sense, EfVET identified some of the approaches that VET can take to address the shortage of creative professionals who know when, why and how to use AI (and also when not to use it), by:
- Being a bridge between technological innovation and creative practice,
- Protecting and strengthening human creative competences,
- Providing the upskilling and reskilling infrastructure that the CCIs need,
- Connecting the fragmented creative skills ecosystem, supporting cooperation between VET providers, CCIs’ companies, freelancers, universities, public authorities and sectoral organisations.
During this session, EfVET was joined by other fellow partners of RenAIssance, taking the opportunity to highlight the potential contributions of this strategic Erasmus+ funded project for addressing the emergent AI skills needs of the Manufacturing, Architecture, Design and Arts (MADA) sectors.
What’s next for the Creative Skills Week now that CYANOTYPES project is over?
The Creative Skills Week initiative was launched by CYANOTYPES as a way of providing visibility to the project, to its activities and expected results, and to their expected impact on Education, on the CCSIs and potentially on other socio-economic sectors – an experience that had positive results considering the increased level of interest and participation it raised among key stakeholders throughout the years.
In fact, the Creative Skills Week 2026 was recognised as an Associated Event of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2026, which proves the relevance of the event and its cross-sectoral impact.
Discussions are being held to explore the organisation of the Creative Skills Week 2027. Given EfVET’s involvement in strategic projects in the CCIs such as CYANOTYPES and RenAIssance, as well as its active engagement with the CCIs Education through the EfVET CCI Working Group initiative, we are open to support the implementation of the next CSW. Stay tuned for more news about this!