C-Ship program

In 10 weeks, structured into 20 half-days (80 hours), from 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM on Mondays and Tuesdays.

• March: Monday 17 March 2025, Tuesday 18 March 2025, Monday 24 March 2025, Tuesday 25 March 2025, Monday 31 March 2025
• April: Tuesday 1 April 2025, Monday 7 April 2025, Tuesday 8 April 2025, Monday 14 April 2025, Tuesday 15 April 2025, Tuesday 22 April 2025,
• May: Monday 5 May 2025, Tuesday 6 May 2025, Monday 12 May 2025, Tuesday 13 May 2025, Monday 19 May 2025, Monday 26 May 2025, Tuesday 27 May 2025,
• June: Tuesday 3 June 2025, Tuesday 10 June 2025

By the end of this training, you will have: 

• Defined how to launch your project to be desirable, feasible, viable, and impactful 
• Explored and challenged your own glass ceilings and mental models 
• Innovated in terms of product, organization, and artistic processes 
• Strengthened the resilience of your project through new modes of operation, funding, partnerships, accessibility, diversity, and by operationalizing your activities 
• Integrated sustainability into your project by exploring key sustainable business models 
• Implemented a strategy to leverage the ecosystem and establish partnerships 
• Explored how to leverage new technologies sustainably and ethically 
• Assessed the economic, environmental, and societal impacts of your activity or project 

All of this while: 

• Working in an agile/cooperative project mode within a multidisciplinary team combining creative, technical, and business profiles 
• Using beneficiary-centered methods such as design thinking and the lean startup approach 

Individuals, freelancers, micro-enterprises 

This training is intended for: 

• Anyone who would like to embark on a cultural entrepreneurial adventure with an idea, specific challenges, or a concrete project in mind 
• Cultural professionals who already 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.) 

The learning experience is based on a very dynamic configuration focused on "learning by doing" and "peer coaching." In other words, you will be in control of your learning journey and will have the opportunity to advance your project while learning. 

The course is organized around four types of sequences: 

1. Induction: Interactive group sessions where tools and methodologies are introduced 
2. Inspiration: Inspirational testimonies and examples 
3. Doing: Individual and team work on your project 
4. Cross-fertilization: Pro-action subgroup sessions and mutual enrichment 

Beyond collective learning sessions, the course also integrates: 

• Testimonials related to some of the topics covered 
• Autonomous team work sessions 
• Personalized coaching sessions 
• An intermediate and final presentation of your project’s progress 
• A networking event with institutional players and cultural funders at the end of the course 

The course will be taught in-person. It is limited to 10 participants and will be activated once the minimum threshold is reached. 

For each of the five themes listed below, time will be allocated for reflection, with personalized coaching, on applying the concepts to your case study and project. 

1. Innovation of Business & Operating Models 

• Me as a cultural entrepreneur 
• Working in Agile, Design Thinking, and Lean Startup modes 
• Discovering and applying sustainable business models 
• Leveraging digital marketing 
• Monetizing your project and building a financial model 

2. Internal Management 

• How to improve time and project management sustainably and calmly? 
• AI Ethics & UX 
• How to handle invoicing, taxes, and general administration? 
• What legal status for a cultural enterprise? 

3. Ecosystem and Partnerships 

• Designing, framing, and implementing partnerships 
• Testing and strengthening resilience 

4. Sustainability and Positive Impacts 

• Analyzing environmental and social impacts along the value chain 
• Understanding social issues 
•  Preparing for risks, opportunities, and project resilience 

5. Governance 

• Organizational design and governance 
• Including the human factor 
• Integrating the solution into an innovation system 

C-Ship Webinar 1, Thursday 27 March 2025 16:00-17:30 (CET)

Cultural and creative sectors competitiveness vs ecosystem partnerships

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Feedback survey

C-Ship Webinar 2, Thursday 17/04/2025 16:00-17:15 (CET)

CCIs as drivers of entrepreneurship, innovation & creativity while building local infrastructures of solidarity & resilience 

Zoom registration link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/A2CpH8eUSuGwXdxHB9ilOw

C-SHIP Webinar 3: Thursday 14 November 2024, 16:00-17:30 (CET)

Cultural entrepreneurs & the art of juggling financial uncertainties

Zoom registration Link; https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAvdOCspzsjHNQIZakvBZaco7HetwhRiEWQ

C-Ship Webinar 4, Thursday 19/06/2025 16:00-17:15 (CET)

The role of intermediaries in bridging the gap between creatives and the business world

Zoom registration link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/O6rMzsXjQkq8zNmxjbZUFQ

Webinars in English

• Webinaire 1: Bridging the gap between end of studies and business world for CCIs?
  Tuesday 17 September 2024, 16:00-17:30
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• Webinaire 2: Cultural entrepreneurship and Social Return on Investment (SROI)
  Thursday 24 October 2024, 16:00-17:30 
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• C-SHIP Webinaire 3: Cultural entrepreneurs & the art of juggling financial uncertainties
  Thursday 14 November 2024, 16:00-17:30
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• C-SHIP Webinaire 4: Culture and arts fair access and opportunities
  Thursday 12 December 2024, 16:00-17:30
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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!
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• Thursday 8 December 2022, 16:00-17:15 (CET)
  Webinar 2: Cultural entrepreneurship and money: a love/hate relationship
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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?
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• Thursday 16 February 2023, 16:00-17:15 (CET)
  Webinar 4: Art & business: collision or synergy?
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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
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• Tuesday 16 November 2021 16:00-17:00: CCI, developing ecosystems and partnerships
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• Tuesday 21 December 2021 16:00-17:00: CCI, internal and external governance
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• Tuesday 18 January 2022 16:00-17:00: ICC, new technologies
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• Tuesday 22 February 2022 16:00-17:00: ICC, sustainability and positive societal impact
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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.