The aim of this report is to provide a cross-analysis of the ekip ”investment & funding” building block that offer a structured way to understand and address the key policy and innovation challenges facing the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs’). The Investment & funding dimension looks at how financial models can shape CCIs’ ability to experiment and growth. It explores approaches that are inclusive, transparent, and aligned with long-term cultural and public value.

Key challenges for CCIs 

Investment and funding play a central role in shaping the capacity of CCIs to participate in open innovation ecosystems. Across Europe’s cultural and creative sectors, access to appropriate financing conditions determine whether organisations and creators can experiment, collaborate across sectors, adopt new technologies, scale innovative practices, and contribute to wider societal transitions. However, existing funding and investment systems often remain poorly aligned with the operational realities of CCIs, which are characterised by project-based work, small-scale organisational structures, intangible value creation, and high levels of uncertainty and experimentation. As a result, many innovative CCI initiatives struggle to access long-term, flexible, and risk-tolerant support, particularly in areas requiring cross-sector collaboration, technological adoption, sustainability transitions, or socially driven innovation. 

Evidence gathered across nine ekip Policy Labs conducted over the course of two years (2024 and 2025) demonstrates that investment and funding are not only economic mechanisms, but also policy instruments that shape the direction, inclusiveness, and sustainability of innovation ecosystems. The analysed Policy Areas reveal recurring structural challenges, including fragmented funding landscapes, limited access to experimentation funding, insufficient support for scaling successful initiatives, barriers for SMEs and independent creators, and a lack of financing models that recognise cultural and social value alongside economic competitiveness. At the same time, the Policy Labs highlight the growing importance of funding approaches that enable interdisciplinary collaboration, strengthen innovation infrastructures and communities of practice, support skills development, and encourage long-term ecosystem building. In this context, innovation policy increasingly needs to move beyond narrowly technology-driven or market-oriented perspectives towards more holistic funding frameworks that recognise CCIs as active contributors to Europe’s digital, green, and social transitions. 

Taken together, evidence analysed by ekip highlights a set of common challenges on the ‘investment and funding’ building block related to involving CCIs in open innovation ecosystems: 

• Existing funding systems often prioritise short-term, outcome-driven, and technology-oriented projects, while many CCI innovation processes are experimental, iterative, relational, and difficult to evaluate through conventional economic metrics alone. This creates structural mismatches between innovation funding models and the operational realities of CCIs.

• Many CCI actors, particularly SMEs, freelancers, independent creators, and small cultural organisations, face difficulties accessing innovation funding due to administrative complexity, co-financing requirements, fragmented funding landscapes, and limited institutional capacity to engage with large-scale innovation programmes.

• Funding instruments frequently undervalue cultural, social, and civic forms of innovation, focusing instead on measurable technological or commercial outputs. As a result, forms of innovation typical to CCIs, such as community engagement, participatory innovation, cultural mediation, and creative experimentation, often remain insufficiently recognised within innovation policy frameworks. 

• CCIs often lack access to flexible and risk-tolerant funding needed for experimentation, prototyping, and cross-sector collaboration. Innovation ecosystems require spaces for testing ideas, building trust, and developing collaborations over time, yet many funding schemes remain rigid, highly competitive, and tied to predefined outputs. 

• There is insufficient long-term support for scaling and sustaining successful innovation initiatives beyond pilot or project phases. Many promising experiments and collaborations within CCIs remain temporary because ecosystems lack continuity funding, investment pathways, and mechanisms for replication or institutionalisation. 

• Cross-sector and interdisciplinary innovation involving CCIs is frequently constrained by siloed funding structures and limited coordination between cultural, research, technological, educational, and industrial policy domains. This reduces opportunities for collaborative innovation and weakens the systemic role of CCIs within broader innovation ecosystems. 

• Rapid digital and green transitions create increasing pressure on CCIs to adopt new technologies, sustainability practices, and business models, yet many actors lack the financial resources necessary for infrastructure investments, skills development, experimentation, and organisational adaptation. 

• Innovation funding and investment ecosystems often remain highly uneven across Europe, creating disparities in access to resources, infrastructures, and support mechanisms between regions, sectors, and organisational types. This limits the inclusiveness and diversity of European innovation ecosystems and affects the long-term resilience and competitiveness of CCIs.  

Policy recommendations across policy areas 

Taken together, the evidence analysed by ekip suggests that strengthening the role of CCIs within open innovation ecosystems requires a shift towards more inclusive, flexible, and ecosystem-oriented investment and funding approaches. Across the analysed Policy Areas, a recurring recommendation is that innovation funding frameworks should better reflect the specific characteristics of CCI-driven innovation processes, which are often experimental, interdisciplinary, socially embedded, and based on long-term relationship building rather than immediate commercial outputs. This requires moving beyond narrowly technology-driven and short-term project funding models towards more adaptive mechanisms that support experimentation, collaboration, scaling, and sustainable ecosystem development. 

A central recommendation emerging across the Policy Areas is the need for more accessible and diversified funding opportunities for SMEs, freelancers, independent creators, and smaller cultural organisations. This includes reducing administrative barriers, supporting low-threshold entry mechanisms such as microgrants and seed funding, enabling cascade funding approaches, and developing intermediary support structures that help smaller actors engage with innovation ecosystems. Several Policy Areas also emphasise the importance of blended and multi-level financing models combining public funding, private investment, local support structures, and EU-level programmes to create more resilient and balanced innovation environments. 

The Policy Areas further underline the importance of funding mechanisms that actively foster cross-sector collaboration and interdisciplinary innovation. Rather than treating CCIs as peripheral communication actors, recommendations consistently advocate recognising CCIs as equal innovation partners capable of contributing to technological, social, environmental, and cultural innovation processes. Funding instruments should therefore encourage co-creation between CCIs and actors from technology, research, education, sustainability, health, manufacturing, and public sectors, while also supporting infrastructures and intermediary organisations that facilitate knowledge exchange and long-term collaboration. 

Another recurring recommendation concerns the need for more risk-tolerant and long-term innovation support. The analysed Policy Areas repeatedly highlight that many successful innovation experiments within CCIs fail to continue beyond pilot stages due to rigid funding cycles and insufficient scaling mechanisms. Policy recommendations therefore emphasise supporting experimentation, prototyping, Living Labs, communities of practice, and long-term ecosystem building through flexible funding schemes that allow innovation processes to evolve gradually and iteratively. This also includes recognising cultural, social, civic, and sustainability-related value creation as legitimate innovation outcomes alongside economic competitiveness and technological advancement. 

Finally, the analysed Policy Areas stress that investment and funding policies should play a stronger strategic role in enabling Europe’s digital and green transitions. This includes investing in digital infrastructures, sustainability transitions, skills development, interoperability, and innovation capacities across CCI ecosystems. Funding policies should also help reduce structural inequalities across regions and sectors by ensuring that smaller actors and less-resourced ecosystems are able to participate meaningfully in innovation processes. In this context, innovation funding is increasingly understood not only as economic support, but as a governance instrument shaping the inclusiveness, resilience, competitiveness, and long-term sustainability of Europe’s innovation ecosystems. 

European level recommendations 

Across the analysed Policy Areas, ekip recommends that the EU develop more flexible and inclusive innovation funding frameworks that better reflect the realities of CCIs. A recurring recommendation is to recognise CCIs as equal innovation actors within Europe’s digital, green, and social transitions, and to integrate them more strongly into EU innovation and industrial policies. 

ekip recommends: 

• more accessible funding mechanisms for SMEs, freelancers, and independent creators,  
• long-term and risk-tolerant support for experimentation and scaling,  
• stronger support for cross-sector collaboration and innovation ecosystems,  
• investment in intermediary organisations, innovation hubs, and shared infrastructures,  
• and increased support for skills development, digitalisation, sustainability transitions, and innovation literacy within CCIs. 

CCIs require investment models that support: 

• experimentation before commercialisation,  
• ecosystem building before scaling,  
• relational and social innovation alongside technological innovation,  
• and long-term adaptive capacities rather than only short-term measurable outputs. 

Existing EU Policy Frameworks and Programmes facilitating investment and funding for the CCIs 

The analysed Policy Areas identify several existing EU policy frameworks, programmes, and initiatives that already support aspects of the “Investment & Funding” building block for CCIs and open innovation ecosystems. 

At the strategic level, Horizon Europe plays a central role in supporting research and innovation activities connected to CCIs, including AI, immersive media, sustainability transitions, heritage innovation, and cross-sector collaboration. Multiple Policy Areas specifically reference Horizon Europe as an important mechanism for supporting experimentation, collaborative innovation, skills development, and ecosystem building. 

The NEB initiative is highlighted as an important EU framework linking sustainability, design, inclusion, and cultural innovation. The NEB has enabled CCIs to participate more visibly in green transition projects and interdisciplinary innovation ecosystems, although several Policy Areas note that its long-term funding continuity and integration of CCIs could be strengthened further. 

Creative Europe continues to serve as a key EU programme supporting cultural cooperation, experimentation, cross-border collaboration, audience development, and innovation in CCIs. Several Policy Areas implicitly position Creative Europe as an important ecosystem-building instrument, particularly for smaller cultural actors and transnational collaboration. In addition, Erasmus+ is referenced as a mechanism supporting lifelong learning, innovation competencies, and cross-sector skills development within creative ecosystems. 

In relation to digital and industrial transitions, several Policy Areas refer to broader EU regulatory and strategic frameworks. Examples include: 

• the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR),  
• the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles,  
• the Transition Pathway for Textiles ecosystem,  
• and the Digital Product Passport (DPP) framework supporting circularity, transparency, and sustainability in fashion and textiles.  

The policy recommendations also reference ongoing EU efforts related to: 

• platform regulation and data governance,  
• accessibility standards,  
• digital infrastructure development,  
• innovation monitoring,  
• and support for European competitiveness and strategic autonomy.  

Taken together, these initiatives demonstrate that the EU already provides an important foundation for supporting CCI-driven innovation. However, the cross-analysis suggests that existing actions remain fragmented across policy domains and programmes. The Policy Areas therefore consistently recommend stronger coordination, more flexible funding architectures, and a broader innovation policy perspective that better reflects the distinctive contribution of CCIs to Europe’s innovation ecosystems. 

The cross-analysis demonstrates that investment and funding are not merely financial support mechanisms, but strategic governance tools shaping the inclusiveness, resilience, and long-term sustainability of Europe’s innovation ecosystems. Across the analysed Policy Areas, CCIs consistently emerge as valuable innovation actors whose contribution depends on more flexible, accessible, and ecosystem-oriented funding approaches. Strengthening the role of CCIs within open innovation ecosystems therefore requires coordinated investment strategies that support experimentation, cross-sector collaboration, sustainability transitions, and long-term ecosystem development across Europe.