After the successful implementation of the creative placemaking projects, it was the time for the partnership to hold policy roundtables, engaging all relevant stakeholders in discussions with the scope to further exploit the project results and aiming to their capitalization through institutionalization.
More specifically, policy making processes took place on two levels. Firstly, three national policy roundtables were organized in Greece, Italy and Portugal and later on, one European policy roundtable was implemented in the context of COME2ART European Conference in Brussels. Relevant stakeholders such as policy makers, representatives of universities, regional public authorities, CSOs, artist and cultural organizations, representatives from the European Parliament and European Commission were invited to discuss upon the highlighted topics emerged through the pilot testing of the COME2ART activities and results.
The stakeholders, participated in the national as well as the European policy roundtables, were asked to propose policies towards two directions: a) placing arts in the center of life skills development while fostering belonging and arts-based social inclusion at community level, and b) advocating on new roles to be undertaken by artists and cultural workers as community educators and creativity ambassadors.
Some of the main policies derived from the discussions were focusing on the importance of support and promotion of local, national and european artistic networks through stronger funding and resources, the provision of trainings for artists to navigate networks effectively and enhance their own life skills, a better definition and encouragement of public discourse around life skills and their importance for personal and professional growth and finding new ways to integrate arts and artists in policy- making processes.
The policies derived from the above-mentioned roundtables can be used by policy makers as a tool to promote alternative ways of arts expression and new audiences for artists and cultural workers. Moreover, they can be useful for policy makers in the field of culture and arts, such as Ministries of Culture and Arts, municipalities at local level and regional public authorities, associations of cultural and creative workers. Local and regional authorities can exploit the policy recommendations to involve and engage community members in cultural planning strategies. Educational authorities in adult education will exploit the policy recommendations to formally include the curriculum on life skills development though arts in the field of adult education.
