Study Visits Programme

Study visits offer excellent opportunities to present an institution’s work, meet experts from various countries and professional backgrounds, establish contacts for cooperation and get inspiring ideas. Organising a study visit is rewarding and beneficial for institutions and organisations as it is a rich learning experience, a way to get new stimulus for development, raise visibility about a particular project, find partners for further cooperation, and boost the motivation of those involved.

Since the 1990s Lia Ghilardi has been involved in organising and delivering study visits with delegations from Sweden, Norway, Italy and Scotland. In each case, the participants wanted to see good examples of cultural plans, regeneration and/or art and creative industries hubs, as well as to meet the people involved in running and delivering such best practice. Favourite destinations for the Study Visits have been: London, and its various examples of creative, cultural and community developments, as well as Bristol and Folkestone.

Recent examples are: the UK visit of the Norsk Kulturforum (Norwegian Cultural Forum), together with representatives of 6 municipalities from the Fjords region. During the visit, the 18 delegates (from different departments, such as planning, culture, welfare, tourism, education) met key arts and cultural organisations in London (e.g. the Creative Industries Development Agency, among others) and Folkestone (the Creative Foundation), and attended a series of cultural planning master classes led by Lia Ghilardi. The visit received positive feedback from all participants.

In 2018 a delegation of policy makers and officers from the culture, tourism and youth departments of the provinces of Trento and Bolzano (Italy) conducted a visit to London (Bankside, The Low Line, and Hackney Wick) and Bristol (various organisations and Creative England). The key learning points of this visit that were particularly appreciated by the participants were the potential offered by the creative industries to contribute to the economy of cities, and the innovative crossovers between the private and public sectors established in Bristol for managing successful cultural and creative spaces.