DE Actors in rural areas often lack innovation competences and the methods to initiate cooperation with innovative enterprises. Thus, companies from the creative industries have only occasionally been seen as a potential cooperation partner for villages to develop their manifold local cultural resources and to find innovative ideas to preserve the attractiveness of the region. 

The MaC Village project develops an easy-to-apply methodology in an iterative process for the local and regional level to initiate innovations in cooperation with CCI enterprises. A range of innovation methods will be tested in three villages per partner region and further developed. The methods are easy to use and promote a rapid and joint development of competence and innovative networking.

The project brings together people from different fields (local authorities and stakeholders, regions, business development agencies and organisations with specific competence in CCI and social entrepreneurship) and gathers them in a multi-level dialogue. 

The project partnership will implement 48 innovation workshops in six regions in Germany, Austria, Italy, Slovenia and Hungary. They will promote cooperation among local actors and CCI. More than 200 stakeholders will be trained to implement innovation methods developed in the project. By doing so local actors in the villages will be able to create favourable local conditions for CCI and innovative networks for new products and services exploiting their cultural resources and develop new businesses.