C-Ship program

This edition of C-SHIP CULTURESPRINTwill take place from October 13, 2026 to March 25, 2027. The training dates are as follows:

October 2026

• Tuesday, October 13, 2026, 15:00–17:00 Ecosystem Presentation and Mapping
• Tuesday, October 20, 2026, 16:00–17:00 Online Roundtable 1 Framing

November 2026

• Tuesday, November 3, 2026, 9:00–17:30 Design Sprint 1: Framing
• Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 16:00–17:00 Online Roundtable 2: Ideation
• Monday, November 16, 2026, 9:00–17:30 Design Sprint 2: Ideation
• Monday, November 23, 2026, 13:30–17:30 Individual Coaching

December 2026

• Thursday, December 3, 2026, 15:30–17:30 Idea Testing
• Monday, December 7, 2026, 09:00–17:30 Design sprint 3: Prototyping
• Tuesday December 15, 2026, 16:00–17:00 Online Roundtable 3 prototyping

January 2027

• Thursday January 7, 2027, 13:30 17:30 Intermediate presentations
• Thursday January 14, 2027, 16:00–17:00Online Roundtable 4: Testing
• Thursday January 21, 2027, 09:00–17:30 Design sprint 4: Test & adapt

February 2027

• Thursday February 2, 2027, 15:30–17:30 Testing and networking
• Thursday February 11, 2027, 16:00–17:00Online Roundtable 4: Validation
• Thursday February 18, 2027, 09:00–17:30 Design sprint 5: Roadmap & implement

March 2027

• Thursday March 11, 2027, 13:30–17:30 Individual Coaching
• Thursday March 18, 2027, 13:30–17:30 Dry-run
• Thursday March 25, 2027, 16:00–18:00 Jury & 18:00 –19:00 networking

To develop cross-functional and entrepreneurial skills enabling cultural and creative industries (CCIs) professionals to design, test, and structure culturally relevant and economically viable projects.

Upon completion of the training, participants will be able to:

• analyze a context and identify opportunities
• design a value proposition
• prototype and test solutions
• structure a business model
• present a project convincingly

Individuals, freelancers, micro-enterprises 

This training is intended for cultural professionals who have a project and want to innovate, reinvent, or reshape their offer in an entrepreneurial way. 

More specifically, the training will be open to the following profiles: 

• Performing arts (artists, musicians, dancers, actors, set designers, stage managers, choreographers, festival directors, etc.) 
• Visual arts (painters, illustrators, graphic designers, digital arts, advertisers, designers, modelers, etc.) 
• Cultural institutions and museums (project/program managers, curators, exhibition commissioners, etc.) 
• Film and audiovisual production (development producers, executive producers, production coordinators, production designers, directors of photography, sound and lighting engineers, sales, and distribution) 
• Cultural heritage (architects, interior architects, artisans, curators, cultural associations, etc.) 

C-SHIP is an intensive, immersive, and action-oriented training program designed to empower professionals in the Cultural and Creative Sectors to transform an intuition, ambition, or creative idea into a concrete, credible, and economically viable entrepreneurial project.

Over several weeks, participants embark on a journey structured around five design sprints that replicate the key stages of this rapid and collaborative innovation method, combining strategy, creativity, and testing. They first learn to understand the real challenges and needs of target audiences (Frame), then to develop promising concepts (Ideate). Very quickly, the ideas take shape through rapid prototyping (Prototype), before being tested with real users (Test & Adapt). Finally, the projects are consolidated and prepared for future development (Roadmap & Implement). The process covers the project's desirability, feasibility, economic viability, and potential societal impact.

Here, learning happens by doing. Each sprint combines knowledge acquisition, rapid experimentation, and tangible output: prototypes, business models, presentations, and development strategies. Participants leave not only with new skills but also with structured and validated projects.

The structure combines several formats with a strong practical component:

• 5 intensive sprints: 1 per month
• Case studies: analysis of real-life cultural projects
• Each participant focuses on her/his own project throughout the training
• Inter-sprint phases: support and coaching
• Inspiring moments: in the form of roundtables, testing events, a networking event, and a final presentation to the jury.

For each of the five design sprints, time will be allocated for reflection, with personalized coaching, on applying the concepts to your project.

Design Sprint 1 Framing: Explore and define

Analysis of cultural contexts, understanding users, identifying needs and target audiences

Design Sprint 2 Ideation: Design and experiment

Generation of ideas, exploration of creative avenues, application of design sprint methods to imagine and sketch solutions.

Design Sprint 3 Prototyping: Materialize solutions

Rapid prototyping of selected concepts, creation of mock-ups and user scenarios to make ideas testable.

Design Sprint 4 Testing: Test and adapt

Organization of user testing, collection of feedback, iteration on the solution, adjustment of the value proposition, and validation of key assumptions. Testing the feasibility of channels and marketing strategy.

Design Sprint 5 Validation: Roadmap & implement

Business Model Innovation & valuation & project structuring 

20/10/2026, 16h00-17h00 

Registration coming soon

10/11/2026, 16h00-17h00

Registration coming soon

15/12/2026, 16h00-17h00

Registration coming soon

14/01/2027, 16h00-17h00

Registration coming soon

11/02/2027, 16h00-17h00

Registration coming soon

Webinars in English

• Webinar: Cultural and creative sectors competitiveness vs ecosystem partnerships
  Thursday 19/06/2025 16:00-17:15 
  Watch the video again
• Webinar: CCIs as drivers of entrepreneurship, innovation & creativity while building local infrastructures of solidarity & resilience 
  Thursday 17/04/2025 16:00-17:15 
  Watch the video againWebinar: Gendered perspectives: creatives joggling between business & family life balance

• Thursday 22/05/2025 16:00-17:15
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• Webinar: The role of intermediaries in bridging the gap between creatives and the business world
  Thursday 19/06/2025 16:00-17:15 

  Watch the video again

   

Webinars in English

• Webinar 1: Bridging the gap between end of studies and business world for CCIs?
  Tuesday 17 September 2024, 16:00-17:30
  Watch the video again
• Webinar 2: Cultural entrepreneurship and Social Return on Investment (SROI)
  Thursday 24 October 2024, 16:00-17:30 
  Watch the video again

• Webinar 3: Cultural entrepreneurs & the art of juggling financial uncertainties
  Thursday 14 November 2024, 16:00-17:30
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• Webinar 4: Culture and arts fair access and opportunities
  Thursday 12 December 2024, 16:00-17:30
   Watch the video again

Webinars in Anglais

• Webinar 1: Cultural entrepreneurship, what skills for the future?
  Thursday 26 septembre 2023, 16:00-17:30
  Wath the video again

• Webinar 2: Cross-sector collaboration why and how?*
  Thursday 12 Octobre 2023, 16:00-17:15
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• Webinar 3: Cultural entrepreneurship, what skills for the future?
  Thursday 16 novembre 2023, 16:00-17:15
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• Webinar 4: Cultural entrepreneurship and green transition
  Thursday 14 décembre 2023, 16:00-17:15
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Webinars in English:

• Thursday 17 November 2022, 16:00-17:15 (CET)
  Webinar 1: Make culture the business of your life!
  Watch the video again
• Thursday 8 December 2022, 16:00-17:15 (CET)
  Webinar 2: Cultural entrepreneurship and money: a love/hate relationship
  Watch the video again

Collaboration between C-SHIP and Artisans of Innovation :

• Thursday 19 January 2023, 16:00-17:15 (CET)
  Webinar 3: Art & business as drivers of a reciprocal change of mentality?
  Watch the video again

• Thursday 16 February 2023, 16:00-17:15 (CET)
  Webinar 4: Art & business: collision or synergy?
  Watch the video again

Anthropocene walks

As part of Economic Transition Week (18-25 November 2022), the C-SHIP team wanted to raise awareness of the negative commons and trigger collective thinking, discussion and perhaps answers through a number of Anthropocene walks. 

Webinars in English:

• Tuesday 26 October 2021 16:00-17:00: Creative Cultural Industries (CCI), innovative business model
  Watch the video again
• Tuesday 16 November 2021 16:00-17:00: CCI, developing ecosystems and partnerships
  Watch the video again
• Tuesday 21 December 2021 16:00-17:00: CCI, internal and external governance
  Watch the video again
• Tuesday 18 January 2022 16:00-17:00: ICC, new technologies
  Watch the video again
• Tuesday 22 February 2022 16:00-17:00: ICC, sustainability and positive societal impact
  Watch the video again

Workshop

As part of the 19th European Week of Regions and Cities https://europa.eu/regions-and-cities/, ICHEC C-SHIP, Metropolitan Research Institute (Hungary), Institute for Research on Innovation and Services for Development IRISS-CNR (Italy) and the European Commission's European Research Executive Agency are organising a workshop: Collaborative Heritage Ecosystems in the Post-Pandemic EU. The workshop took place on Tuesday 12 October 2021 from 11.30am to 1pm.

Watch the video !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txPI8lVkzNc

For more information:

https://europa.eu/regions-and-cities/programme/sessions/1878_en

3 Activities linked to European research

- 7-9 September 2022: Hackathon of the H2020 BeCultour project (https://www.becultour.eu/)

The COVID crisis has hit the cultural and creative sectors hard. Subsidies decreased. The audience is coming back, but not as much as hoped. Our experience shows that an entrepreneurial approach to culture can be a response to these challenges, while preserving its intrinsic values.

C-SHIP stands for Cultural Entrepreneurship. It was designed by ICHEC in response to COVID crisis under the framework of the United Nations International Year for the Creative Economy & Sustainable Development.

It's an action learning programme on cultural entrepreneurship addressing artists and cultural professionals and wannabes. Action training because it offers two tailor-made trainings (C-SHIP & Artpreneur) organised in the form of interactive sessions, meetings and exchanges, learning by doing and coaching together with a series of free webinars.

To date, there is no agreed-upon definition of Cultural Entrepreneurship. We define it as a set of activities aimed at harnessing a cultural business opportunity. The novelty stands in being innovative in transforming cultural values into economic values. The process of creating new cultural expressions could be also interpreted as the business of capturing intangible values (performing arts, artistic creation, traditions and knowledge, etc…) into tangible outcomes in the form of cultural capital. The process of creating new adaptive reuse of heritage buildings is about the business of transforming abandoned, underused, or not in use cultural heritage into common goods which reflect the needs and aspirations of the contemporary local community with respect to the environment and social practices and interactions. By transforming the cultural asset, the cultural entrepreneur harnesses the existing cultural (tangible and intangible) and economic values and transforms them into enhanced cultural, economic, social, and environmental impacts, outcomes, and benefits.

For both processes, the cultural entrepreneur makes use of new skills and technologies to transform assets into innovative cultural services, goods, uses, and organizational forms that generate financial revenues, positive societal impacts, and new creative and cultural markets.

The core of the C-SHIP programme is the notion of entrepreneurship applied to the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs). For more than 20 years, ICHEC has successfully developed various programs linked to entrepreneurship. Today, it offers an ecosystem of sustainable and impactful entrepreneurship provided by Option Entrepreneuriat et PME, Chaire Familles en Entreprises / Maison du Repreneuriat, Startlab ICHEC, Step2You and C-SHIP for different segments of the society.

ICHEC has thus, contributed to better understanding the entrepreneurial fabric of Brussels and to improving it through innovative educational programmes. Many of these programmes are now accessible in a market that has become very competitive.

On the other hand, the application of this unique expertise to the cultural and creative sectors does not yet have an equivalent. The implementation of the C-SHIP programme is in fact based on three cornerstones: sustainable and inclusive management expertise, application to the cultural and creative sectors, scientific knowledge in heritage economics and the economics of culture.

The creative journey which has its ups and downs, requests a lot of self-confidence, resilience, agility and capacity to pivot. The objective of the C-SHIP programme is to enable professionals in the creative and cultural industries to ensure financial viability, to develop and / or strengthen their management capacities for a sustainable, flourishing and resilient business, while maximizing its societal contribution and its positive impacts. The programme is based on culture and heritage economics, as well as on social entrepreneurship and agile ways of working. It takes a systemic and inclusive approach to creative and cultural economies.

• Philippe Drouillon. Animateur principal de C-SHIP, collaborateur scientifique à l’ICHEC Brussels Management School, fondateur and consultant à ‘Metamorphosis, catalyst of positive impact territories and organizations’.
• Prof. dr. Christian Ost. Président du Raymond Lemaire International Center for Conservation (RLICC) à la KU Leuven, Recteur honoraire de l’ICHEC Brussels Management School.
• dr. Ruba Saleh. Chercheuse et enseignante, ICHEC Brussels Management School.
• Karen El Haddad. Collaboratrice de projet

• Prof. dr. Elena Borin, Associate Professor, Link Campus University, Italie
• dr. Gillian Foster, Institute of Ecological Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Autriche 
• dr. Ugo Guarnacci, Visiting Fellow, School of Politics, Economics and International Relations, University of Reading, Royaume-Uni
• Marcus Haraldsson, Coordinator Global Grand Central, Suède
• Frédéric Meseeuw, Institutional Advisor, Palais de Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles BOZAR, Belgique
• Prof. dr. Andy Pratt, Professor of Cultural Economy, Director, Centre for Culture and the Creative Industries, City University London, Royaume-Uni
• Joke Quintens, Cultural entrepreneur and founder, Wetopia, Marseille, France.
• dr. Hanna Szemző, Managing director, Metropolitan Research Institute, Hongrie
• Prof. dr. Koen Van Balen, full professor Faculty of Engineering Science, Head of Heritage at KU Leuven, Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC), Belgique

Become a C-Ship trainee!

Are you looking for an internship and interested in the cultural and creative sectors?
We would be delighted to welcome you to the C-SHIP internship programme!

Find out more

Our trainees in the C-ship team

• 31 août- 9 octobre 2020, Sida Cheng, KU Leuven University, Belgique.
• 12 avril- 28 mai 2021, Carolina Menegon Nossig, Eindhoven University, Pays-Bas.
• 16 août -30 septembre 2021, Peng Ieng Lei, KU Leuven University, Belgique.
• 23 août - 4 octobre 2021, Farida Elghamry, KU Leuven University, Belgique.
• 23 août- 4 octobre 2021, Mustafa Can Terzi, KU Leuven University, Belgique.
• 21 septembre -29 octobre 2021 & 7 février-01 avril 2022, Nicolas Bertholet, ICHEC, Belgique
• 6 février – 17 mars 2023, Costanza Panti, Luiss University, Italy
• 2 Mai- 30 juin 2023 Abdellah Saoualih, University Paul Valéry-Montpellier, Morocco and France
• 6 November -20 December 2023, Lakshmi Priya Baskaran, , KU Leuven University, Belgique.
• 19 août 2024 - 30 novembre 2024, Lorenzo Venezia, University of Milan, Italy.