The first Partner Meeting of CREATIVE CITIES took place on 22 & 23 February 2010 in Gdansk, Poland. It was the first opportunity for all partners to meet together and to discuss in detail their cities’ creative industries. Therefore, presentations were delivered by representatives from Gdansk, Genoa, Leipzig, Ljubljana and the 2010 European Capital of Culture Pécs. The contributions highlighted that the five partner cities have a huge potential to valorise their cultural and creative capital, yet insufficient information about their creative industries current economic indicators. The discussions were chaired by Susanne Kucharski-Huniat in her function as the Lead Partner’s Head of Project.

Following these presentations, Emilia Niewiarowska gave a report from her participation in the Central Europe Annual Conference that took place on 3 & 4 December 2010 at Verona, Italy. Her presentation included other territorial co-operation projects that address similar themes as CREATIVE CITIES in the Central Europe or other programmes (e.g. INTERREG IVC, URBACT II). Frank Trepte added information about the Regional Studies Association, a network of scientists dealing with creative industries that is interested to collaborate closely with the CREATIVE CITIES partners.
Lunchtime was used to deepen the previous discussions during a guided walk through the historic centre of Gdansk. Among other facts, participants learned about the importance of the large presence of university students for the city’s development.
The afternoon session began with a presentation of the German Association for Housing, Urban and Spatial Development that joined the CREATIVE CITIES partnership to support the communication of results to political decision-makers in Europe in general and Germany in particular. Thorsten Witte outlined the proposed activities in his contribution that also aim to bring results of different projects together.

The last item on the first day’s agenda was the Administrative Session during which the coordination structures of the project constituted. Frank Trepte explained the project and financial management principles that are relevant for the realisation of CREATIVE CITIES.
On the second day, the first tasks in the project were jointly discussed. Susanne Kucharski-Huniat presented a proposal for a common methodology to undertake the SWOT analysis of the cities’ creative industries. Partners agreed that a small work group with representatives of all cities should continue the discussion to clarify questions of the sector’s definition and the methodology of the analysis. Further themes addressed concerned the involvement of creative industry stakeholders in the project implementation and the Opening Conference of CREATIVE CITIES. The public event will take place on 28 & 29 June 2010 at Pécs, Hungary.

The last session of the meeting was dedicated to the communication and dissemination activities of the project. The responsible partners presented their proposals for the project logo, the launch of the project website and the project leaflet.

Inspired by the friendly atmosphere between the participants and the partner cities’ potentials in creative industries, yet a little exhausted from the intensive discussions, the first Partner Meeting finished with a loud “Dziękuję bardzo” for the excellent hospitality of the Polish hosts.