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Culture along borders…it’s of Capital importance!

First of all, all of the cities have been, are or will be “European Capitals of Culture” for a year of rich and intense cultural programming.

However, these cities have something else in common: their geographical location very close to a border. This particularity enables them to broaden their cultural programme by opening it up to the whole of the cross-border region in which they are located.

Carried out by four research centres*, the CECCUT project (Capitales Européennes de la Culture et Cohésion Urbaine Transfrontalière – European Capitals of Culture and Cross-Border Urban Cohesion) aimed precisely to explore this initiative’s ability, through its three core objectives**, to become a veritable engine for integration and cohesion in the EU’s cross-border territories.

The MOT, which is a methodological partner in the project, contributed to the “Culture, Europe and borders” roundtable during the event to mark the closing of the project, which took place on 8 June 2022, in Lille. This seminar was an opportunity to present one of the project’s main outcomes: a guide to good practices regarding cross-border culture policy, also including a toolkit to evaluate all these initiatives. Food for thought for the many French candidates bidding to be European Capital of Culture in 2028!

Consult the good practices guide, including an interview with the MOT
Rewatch the closing seminar in Lille (four roundtables):
https://webtv.univ-lille.fr/video/11943/la-culture-l
https://webtv.univ-lille.fr/video/11940/introduction-et-resultats-du-reseau-ceccut
https://webtv.univ-lille.fr/video/11968/resilience-of-creative-and-cultural-actors  
https://webtv.univ-lille.fr/video/11952/perspectives-for-european-capitals-of-culture 
Read about all the findings of the CECCUT project: http://www.ceccut.eu/fr/resultats/ 

¹ Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER); Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain); University of Lille; West University of Timișoara.
² Sense of belonging, social inclusion and urban development