The IRMO - Institute for Development and International Relations, IRMO (HR, partner) is a public, non-profit, scientific, and policy research institute, engaged in the interdisciplinary study of European and international economic, political, cultural relations, and communication. Cultural policy and communication constitute the fields of IRMO's expertise that have been continuously researched within the scope of activities of the Department for Culture and Communication, the focal point of the CRESCINE IRMO research team.

Research Themes

The objectives of this work package are: To ensure that the project is performed according to the agreed timeframe and the projected budget in accordance with the Grant Agreement; to manage project administration and reports to the European Commission; to give centralized support to the consortium and achieve the levels of quantity, quality, and interdependency as defined for the objectives and the deliverables of each work package; to engage in active dialogues and maintain efficient communication between the EC, consortium members, linked third parties and external partners. Keep all partners well informed about developments in order to make progress. Ensure that the principles and human rights are fully respected, and ethics, gender, and diversity issues are carefully considered.
To develop a foundational conceptual framework for understanding and comparing the specific characteristics and challenges of small film markets, which enables the identification of their features, strengths, and weaknesses on a media systemic level.
To provide an empirical multi-level comparative analysis of key industry data in dialogue with WP2. The goal of the analysis is to assemble findings and draw conclusions about the competitiveness of individual small nations’ industries in relation to the rest of the EU; in relation to the UK as the dominant European exporter of content and the USA as the main competitor of domestic content in cinema, broadcast and VoD.
To provide an integrative view on the competitiveness of European small film markets along the film industry’s value chain, whose different sectors are analyzed in WPs5-7. This is to provide a holistic view of the European value chains’ different manifestations in small film markets as regards levels of development and competitiveness, which allows for conclusions about the state of the wider EU film industry’s internal integration and international competitiveness.
To develop a policy toolkit for comparative analysis of the extent to which policy measures in small markets are aligned to support competitiveness. The policy toolkit will be piloted with screen agencies in three small markets (to be selected together with EFAD). This is to expand public funders’ knowledge of competition and how film and audiovisual ecosystems are transforming, which is perceived to be lacking (Eskilsson, 2022) and thereby help them to redesign and align support measures to better position film industries in the global competitive landscape.
The main objective of WP4 is to analyze the existing film-related innovation systems in small EU territories, address their structural limitations and coordination failures, pilot novel solutions to improve their functioning and competitiveness and bring about sustainable growth. WP4 builds on knowledge derived from WP 5-7 that addresses different phases of the value chain.
The knowledge is used to develop evidence-based rationales for innovative interventions. Interventions and pilots aim to bring about systemic change. The focus is on green and sustainable strategies, IPR management, decentralization of market governance models, new forms of financing production, transformative business models, and strengthening the role of film tech startups in the national and EU innovation systems.
All pilots will be developed, tested, and implemented in dialogues with stakeholders. The work on pilots will be complemented by work on improving innovation systems coordination. An end goal is to work towards better complementarity of cultural and innovation policy frameworks, enabling improved coordination and the strengthening of cross-sectoral (film and ICT sectors) innovation systems.
The objective of this WP is to analyze film production, financing, and training ecosystems in European small nations including additional analysis of the long-term impact of Covid-19 and current economic uncertainty. The WP will analyze the current state of talent in the film workforce of small European countries, what obstacles are present for its development, and what educational, industrial, and policy measures need to be established.
Adapting the latest insights from the broader start-up sector to the AV sector and testing their efficacy to improve AV project success to inform evidence-based skills development policy will be a key objective. Through this WP, the project aims at building a sustainable ecosystem model that puts emphasis on cooperative production alliances between European small nations encouraging collaboration, knowledge, and asset sharing.
To develop an innovative methodology that allows for uncovering the preferences of European film audiences and factors promoting and impeding their access to and engagement with films from small European countries in order to widen and diversify the audiences for these films;
To identify the structural factors impeding domestic and international audiences from accessing films coming from small countries. This implies looking at factors beyond audiences’ taste, i.e. socio-economic conditions; access not only as a technological question but also an economic, cultural, and literacy one; the key role of industry and cultural gatekeepers as well as sociability factors such as the communitarian dimension which defines the cinematic experience; To describe the “discovery paths” of domestic and international audiences in relation to small countries’ films and the key moments/technologies/activities in that journey;
To define and test strategies and tools to attract new and international audiences to films coming from small countries. This includes the design of a dashboard of personas that represent the ideal target audiences for films from small countries across various groups and the development of methodologies and tools for audience engagement in contexts of co-creation and piloting of such solutions in small countries;
To support the development of business models and policy-related innovations in WP4 with evidence on audiences’ discovery paths, profiles, and individual motivations;
To promote the key role of small countries and their cinema as places of diversity and testing grounds of innovative ways of fostering audience engagement with European films;
To provide recommendations and policy scenarios aimed at increasing and diversifying domestic and international audiences’ engagement with small European countries’ films that can be included in the “State of European Film” in WP8.
To create and implement a holistic strategy for disseminating and communicating the project's outcomes towards a) the European industry, b) decision-making and the policymaking community, c) adjacent and cross-sectorial industries.
To build and grow a community of European and global stakeholders around the future of the European Audiovisual Industry around the core concepts of the call and CRESCINE objectives and areas of impact delivery. To deploy a comprehensive C, D&E campaign including social and digital media, web and online events, community building, presence at key industry nodes, festivals, and awards, business and innovation interventions, and policy forums for local, regional, and EU stakeholders.
To establish an innovative State of European Film platform with data results from the project and its parts, actionable insights policy and industry suggestions, case studies, impact reports, and the community to foster data and insight-driven approaches at the European audiovisual community.
To map, devise, and implement exploitation of the project results, including research publishing, consortium co-creation, spinoffs of cross-sectoral initiatives, and benchmarking and testing of business models for financial and non-financial exploitation, including experimentation of rights, decentralized infrastructure, and so forth, and to devise exploitation and commercialization venues for the pilots of the results of the work packages.
To act as a promotional center for all the WPs of the project supporting other WPS for high visibility communication, outreach, and exploitations.