Documentation

Network for 

Innovations in Culture 

and Creativity in 

Europe 

N.I.C.E. 

NETWORK & AWARD 

Documentation

Content 

Preface _ Page 3 

The idea of N.I.C.E. _ Page 4 

The history of N.I.C.E. _ Page 8 

N.I.C.E. Partners 2015 _ Page 16 

N.I.C.E. at the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr _ Page 20 

Imprint _ Page 63 

2

PREFACE 

Making the world 

a better place through 

creativity 

Making the world a better place – this is not a 

new goal indeed, but does that make it less 

ambitious? Making the world a better place through 

creativity – this is old news to artists, scientists and 

entrepreneurs. But for a state, and especially a group of 

nation states such as the European Union, it appears to 

be a remarkable innovation that the Latvian EU presidency 

2015 put spillover effects of culture and the 

creative industries into social areas high on the political 

agenda. Thanks to the dedication of Dace Melbârde, 

Minister of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, in June 

2015, the European ministers of culture adopted measures 

to promote the effects of culture and the creative 

industries in innovation, economic sustainability and 

social inclusion for the first time. 1 

In 2013, the Network for Innovations in Culture and Creativity 

in Europe (N.I.C.E.) was launched by a consortium 

of 15 European cities, universities, agencies and personalities 

under the auspices of the european centre for 

creative economy (ecce) with support from the Ministry 

for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport of the State 

of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since then, N.I.C.E. pushes 

and promotes the visibility of innovations from culture 

and the creative industries – the so-called spillover effects 

– with the help of the N.I.C.E. Award, but also with 

political engagement in the European Parliament. So it 

was not a coincidence that it was ecce and the European 

Creative Business Network (ECBN) who opened the 

cultural conference of the Latvian EU presidency in Riga 

– with a keynote speech on spillover effects of culture 

and the creative industries. 

In 2015, the N.I.C.E. Network had reason to celebrate a 

preliminary highlight of the still young award – with 213 

submissions from 29 countries for the call: “Solving the 

World‘ Major Challenges“. 

All applications were of a high standard, and all projects 

submitted were aimed at changing and thus positively 

affecting the world with their innovations – both in their 

direct environment and at the global level. The project 

“WikiHouse” from the United Kingdom uses open-source 

design to build a home: a worldwide platform for a do-ityourself 

building system to create low-cost, low-energy 

houses fitted to your needs. The developers of “Fontus 

and Airo” from Austria designed water bottles capable of 

filling themselves up, literally never running dry. Powered 

by solar cells and mounted on your bike or rucksack, the 

system can filter up to 0.8 litres of water from air moisture 

within one hour. “Smarter Than You Think” from Belgium 

deals with social inclusion. It is a campaign aiming 

to raise awareness about dyslexia and promoting understanding 

and empathy towards this condition. “HELIX 

Studio” from the United Kingdom is an exploration into 

how design can transform the healthcare sector. The 

aim of this design thinking cooperation of a university 

hospital and an art college is to identify and implement 

patient-oriented solutions. 

“THE MACHINE TO BE ANOTHER” is an art investigation: 

designed as an interactive performance installation, the 

Machine offers users the possibility of engaging with 

another person’s life story by seeing themselves in the 

body of this person and listening to his/her thoughts inside 

their mind. Due to the phenomenon of mass migration 

in Europe, this art project is more topical than ever. 

The social challenge consists of a mutual understanding 

of cultural differences in only a short time: can such an 

empathy experiment help overcome social tension? Can 

this art project give impetus to peaceful discussions in a 

highly tensed up society? Such questions, perspectives 

and hopes convinced the jury to award the first prize of 

the N.I.C.E. Award to “THE MACHINE TO BE ANOTHER”. 

The N.I.C.E. Award was conferred by Garrelt Duin, Minister 

of Economic Affairs, Energy and Industry of the 

State of North Rhine-Westphalia. The cooperation of the 

Ministry for Culture and the Ministry of Economic Affairs 

of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia serves as an 

example for future new systems for the promotion of innovation 

as required by the European Union – a spillover 

effect, if you will. 

We believe that the promotion of cultural and creative 

innovations of the Europe 2020 strategy requires a multi-level, 

if not integrative, strategy in Europe. By enhancing 

the visibility of cultural innovations, the N.I.C.E. 

Award is an important contribution to the success of 

the Europe 2020 strategy, but that is not enough. More 

innovations in politics and promotion are necessary. 

With your help, we will continue to focus our efforts in 

this direction! 

Prof Dieter Gorny 

1Source: „Outcome of the Council Meeting, 3388th Council Meeting “Education, Youth, Culture and Sport”, 

Brussels, 18 and 19 May 2015, “how culture and artistic creativity can trigger innovation and enhance 

competitiveness in industry and business, as well as in education, health care and the environment.” 

3

The idea of N.I.C.E. — 

Promoting cultural and 

creative innovations 

in Europe 

In 2015, N.I.C.E., the “Network for Innovations in 

Culture and Creativity in Europe”, exists for 

three years and it continues to grow quickly and break 

expected boundaries: the network won new members in 

Spain, UK and Poland. Attraction and attention are 

booming – so what is really the added value and identity 

of the N.I.C.E. Network? 

N.I.C.E. is a special kind of story beginning at grass-root 

level: it is made up of mostly public-funded local and 

regional institutions which have a shared European vision 

for their local interests to promote the innovative impact 

of culture and creativity on non-cultural sectors like 

urban development, migration or health. 

At the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr in 2013, twelve partners 

from ten nations teamed up for the first time and started 

an initiative and funding on their own account. At 

that point the tools and actions were not even defined 

but emerging from the member interests. N.I.C.E. is an 

open learning organisation developing new tools and 

actions initiated by its members – for the common aim 

of promoting innovation of culture and the creative 

industries. 

This collaborative and open source idea of membership 

leads to a dynamic type of institution with partners in 

very diverse stages of interest and actions, changing 

from year to year. In the field of cultural and creative 

innovations N.I.C.E. is a unique smart network in Europe 

up to now. It attracts stakeholders from cultural and 

creative sectors (for example organisers of festivals, 

business incubators, co-working spaces etc.), from national 

agencies, from platforms representing the interests 

of creative industries, from cities’ administrations, from 

chambers of commerce, and from universities or cultural 

institutions such as theatres and museums. 

In 2013, the network started an award that gets more attention 

with every year – most prominently in the policy 

field with a presentation by the winners of the N.I.C.E. 

Award 2015 at the European Culture Forum in 2016. Its 

flash of attention within the cultural and creative sectors 

is based upon its ambition to showcase the cultural 

4 

and creative projects contribution for solving the world’s 

major problems. This topic did not only boost the number 

of applications from 108 in 2014 to 213 in 2015 but also increased 

the quality of the applicant projects, as Charles 

Landry, head of the international jury, points out. The 

shortlist projects of N.I.C.E. and its award are for many 

cultural and creative makers a good argumentation in 

the dull debates about cuts to budgets and relevance 

of culture and creativity in many regions and cities. 

The N.I.C.E. Award is not so much about the promise of 

20.000 Euros cash but about the hopes of cultural and 

creative players to become a respected innovator in 

society creating a better future. 

This is exactly what the European Union calls for when it 

states that the potential of “cultural and creative sectors 

in the European Union is still not fully recognised” and 

indeed this can be regarded as “largely untapped resources.” 

There is no better way to say what N.I.C.E. is about 

and why you should join N.I.C.E. too. 

N.I.C.E. is an open 

learning organisation 

developing new tools 

and actions initiated 

by its members – 

for the common aim 

of promoting innovation 

of culture and the 

creative industries.

THE IDEA OF N.I.C.E. 

2014: N.I.C.E. Exhibition venue 

City-messehalle in the Creative.Quarter 

City Nord.Essen. 

5

6

THE IDEA OF N.I.C.E. 

“How can we ensure that creative projects 

and processes are better perceived and 

recognised by the general public and by 

decision-makers?” (Charles Landry) 

7

The history 

of N.I.C.E. 

Developing a European 

network based on 

local interests 

2013: Project “Shaking Hans“ — Winner of the pilot of the 

N.I.C.E. Award. 

In September 2012, ecce turned to the European 

Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise 

and Industry with a simple question: What is innovation? 

Which definition is at the heart of the recently announced 

Europe 2020 strategy and its Innovation Union? 

In 2012 – barely a year after its foundation – ecce was 

preoccupied with the setup of sustainable structures to 

promote change through culture in the Ruhr region. From 

the very beginning, this included the continuation of the 

European networks that had been established during the 

European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010, and the future 

use of European potentials and forces in order to support 

structural change in the Ruhr region. These goals adopted 

by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia 

and the Regionalverband Ruhr (Ruhr Regional Association) 

– and laid down in the RUHR.2010 sustainability 

agreement – had to be made fit for the future and put 

into practise. Many questions had to be answered: Which 

networks are suitable to this end? Which structure does 

a network require? And which sectors, trends or topics 

in the Ruhr region are suitable or ready to be supported 

through European potentials? 

During this stage of finding a sustainable European dimension 

of the Ruhr region, the European Union presented 

its new perennial programme for the years 2014–2020: 

the Europe 2020 strategy and the Innovation Union. This 

was one cornerstone in view of European potentials: if the 

Ruhr region intended to tap the potentials offered by the 

European Commission, this had to take place within the 

scope of the Europe 2020 strategy, at least for the years 

2014 to 2020. In retrospect, the simple question “What 

is innovation?” asked in September 2012 can be seen as 

a strategic marker. The European Directorate-General 

answered as follows: 

“Pursuing a broad concept of innovation, both research-driven 

innovation and innovation in business 

models, design, branding and services that add value for 

users and where Europe has unique talents. The creativity 

and diversity of our people and the strength of European 

creative industries, offer huge potential for new growth 

and jobs through innovation, especially for SMEs.” 2 

This definition of innovation was surprising since it seemed 

inherently inconsistent: on the one hand, it drafted 

a comprehensive concept of innovation but gave a list 

of examples, which seemed restrictive on the other. The 

creativity of citizens and the potentials of the creative 

industries were mentioned in the same breath – did that 

mean that different worlds were thrown together without 

any visible underlying concept? Not least since the potential 

of innovation seemed to be focused on – not to say 

limited to – growth and employment: Would that mean 

that innovation potentials in education, social development, 

urban development and integration are not subject 

to the Europe 2020 strategy? Should they not be promoted? 

And what about cultural innovations? How does the 

European Union intend to promote these as of 2014? 

What are cultural innovations? This question directly related 

to the European potentials for RUHR.2010. Depending on 

the European Union’s understanding and definition, this 

might open – or close – a window of European opportunity 

for the Ruhr region. The crucial question was whether the 

top-down definition of the European Union would include 

the regional and urban institutions, the makers and activists 

to be producers of innovative culture – projects such as 

“2-3 streets” by Jochen Gerz, the Games Factory in Mülheim 

an der Ruhr, Urbanatix in Bochum, or many other examples 

of innovative impetus given by RUHR.2010 during the year 

of European Capital of Culture and retained afterwards. 

The clarification of this question did not 

2 

become any easier since the European 

Source: Communication 

definition of creative industries differed 

from the Commission to the 

from the German usage: on the one 

European Parliament, the 

hand, it included public institutions such 

Council, the Economic and 

as museums, theatres and libraries but 

Social Committee and the 

seemed to be much more geared at the 

Committee of the Regions, 

industry on the other. Would this mean 

Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative 

that sole proprietors and self-employed 

artists – who did have commercial 

Innovation Union (Brussels, 

6 Oct 2010). 

intentions yet often only managed to 

8

THE HISTORY OF N.I.C.E. 

9

2013: First workshop “Developing N.I.C.E.“ 

in Dortmund. 

2013: Participants of the spillover workshop 

in the field of “Intercultural Relation“. 

2013: The founding partners at the second Forum d‘Avignon 

Ruhr in Essen after the idea of N.I.C.E. was born. 

10


2014: (from left to right) Some of the project leaders nominated for the N.I.C.E. 

Award with jury member Prof Kurt Mehnert and Prof Dieter Gorny. 

2014: (from left to right) Welcome words from Prof Dieter 

Gorny and N.IC.E. Jury member Prof Kurt Mehnert at the 

Vernissage of the N.I.C.E. Exhibition 2014. 

11

make ends meet – are not considered within the scope of 

the Europe 2020 strategy? 

Would this exclude the diversity of small culture and the 

creative economy, the trademark of the Ruhr region? 

The Ruhr region, however, was not alone to ask these 

questions – many former industrial cities and regions 

that were in transition at the time and still are today 

were facing the same task as ecce as an institution – to 

showcase their cultural identity and history as part of the 

European potentials in the new policies for the years 2014 

to 2020: Bilbao, Birmingham, Rotterdam, Graz, Košice, 

Krakow, Bristol. All these cities are bound by their industrial 

past and their social and urban transitions – supported 

through investments into culture and the creative 

economy. 

Within the framework of the international cultural 

conference Forum d’Avignon Ruhr 2012, informal talks 

among representatives of the aforementioned cities led 

to the idea of creating an alliance, committed to a truly 

open notion of innovation in Europe and making a stand 

against an exclusively commercial concept – where culture, 

be it privately or publicly initiated, and the creative 

industry become recognised driving forces. At the time, 

the renowned urban researcher Charles Landry had published 

a study on “Culture at the heart of transformation” 

dealing with innovations in cities that were triggered 

by culture and creativity – including even the so-called 

“creative administrations”. 

During the winter and spring of 2012/2013, ecce drafted 

a letter of intent relating to the establishment of 

an alliance for innovation from culture and the creative 

economy and presented it in Vienna, Bilbao, Rotterdam 

and Birmingham during a representing tour. The first 

informal idea was to be given a reliable structure so that 

it could be heard in Europe as well. The common concern 

was to be turned into a joint strategy based at first on 

the following credo: all partners within the network take 

2013: Impression of the spillover workshops. 

2014: Visitor at the N.I.C.E. Exhibition 

in the City-messehalle in Essen. 

part out of a genuine, own and local interest – and not 

because this was a network resulting from a project that 

was funded by the European Union. This brought about 

the first innovation for the network itself: a bottom-up 

network to exist without funding by the European Union. 

In retrospect, this was and still is a rarity in Europe. 

In March 2013, the alliance of partners was founded. 

The next step was to develop measures for the network. 

According to the network’s bottom-up philosophy, all 

partners wanted to meet to work on an intrinsically 

innovative measure of promoting cultural and creative 

innovations. The Forum d’Avignon Ruhr 2013 offered the 

perfect occasion. The coincidence of dates, however, led 

to a far-reaching synergy: on the one hand, ecce planned 

design-thinking workshops during the Forum aimed at 

developing so-called spillover projects: cultural professionals 

from the Ruhr region and from Europe came 

together in a one-day workshop to use a hackathon-like 

approach to find and produce innovative projects 

as quickly as possible. On the other hand, the network, 

which was in its start-up phase, was looking for an 

unusual method of promoting innovations. At the Forum 

d’Avignon Ruhr 2013, both approaches were combined in 

the piloting of the N.I.C.E. Award – which led to a surprisingly 

high speed. The network was formally founded in 

June 2013, and at the same time the first measure, namely 

the N.I.C.E. Award, was already piloted. The award 

ceremony of the N.I.C.E. Award 2013 was fully in line 

with the crowdsourcing approach developed during the 

design-thinking workshop: no jury, but instead a voting 

of the participants of the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr determined 

the most innovative cultural project, directly after 

the workshop groups had presented each project to all 

conference participants on the Forum’s stage. “Not just 

another conference” – indeed, the Forum’s slogan was 

immediately implemented, to the surprise of many participants. 

This interactive and highly experimental format 

of the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr was followed by a rather 

classical, yet similarly inspiring award ceremony hosted 

12


considered an innovative method to promote innovations; 

yet can it boost cultural innovation and make it visible? 

The leading N.I.C.E. founding partners had gathered in 

Dortmund for a one-day workshop – including creativ 

wirtschaft austria, Birmingham City University, Dutch 

Design Desk Europe from Maastricht and the cities of 

Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund. The workshop 

was hosted by one of the leading experts in innovation 

in Europe – Dr Gertraud Leimüller (Founder and Chief 

Executive of Winnovation Consulting GmbH/Chairwoman 

of ARGE creativ wirtschaft austria) – after Pia Areblad of 

TILLT had opened the workshop with an introductory statement 

on artistic innovations. TILLT has so far connected 

1,000 artistic projects with businesses – the N.I.C.E. founders 

wanted to learn from this pool of innovations. 

2013: Participants of the spillover workshop in the field of 

“Urban Development“. 

by Garrelt Duin, Minister of Economic Affairs, Energy and 

Industry of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. 

The project “Shaking Hans” presented by the project 

group on urban development, which had been coached 

by the internationally acclaimed urban researcher Charles 

Landry, won the N.I.C.E. Award 2013. 

The team focussed on the following question: “How can 

we ensure that creative projects and processes are better 

perceived and recognised by the general public and by decision-makers?”. 

The group’s challenge was to create an idea, 

which would be interesting enough to appeal to people 

so that they would learn to better appreciate the positive 

impact of innovative projects in urban development and 

community building. To picture the process and to imagine 

somebody in a public place, a stereotype was developed. 

This person was called Hans (though it could have been 

a woman, too). Hans was rather introverted and prejudiced. 

He was a bit self-righteous and self-complacent. He 

was very consumption-oriented and had the feeling – like 

many others – that he was entitled to expect and demand 

something from society. He expected, for instance, that 

others take care of him. 

From this day at the media centre of the Dortmunder U 

emerged the concept of the N.I.C.E. Award as it has been 

pursued and further developed until the present day – 

with the following components: 

• A topic-related call 

• Three target groups 

• Stakeholders from: 

Culture and the creative economy, 

Politics and administration, 

Research and universities 

• Two-stage jury procedure with a shortlist 

• Selection of winner through personal interviews 

with the nominees 

• Award ceremony 

• Exhibition that tours Europe, if possible 

• Mobile exhibition design 

The N.I.C.E. founders agreed right from the start that 

the award should not just be another award, but an 

occasion and purpose to convince cultural and economic 

politics of the significance of cultural innovations and 

thus their eligibility for funding. As a consequence of 

this social dimension, the N.I.C.E. initiators agreed on 

2013: Charles Landry, coach of the project “Shaking Hans“ 

He was not a maker, opinion leader or co-creator of his 

developing city. Basically, there is a Hans in all of us. The 

challenge that the group faced was to convince Hans to 

take a less sceptical stance on participation in urban life, to 

get more involved in his social surroundings so as to strengthen 

his confidence in other people for the benefit of all. In 

addition, the idea was meant to be catalytic, repeatable, 

quantifiable, flexible and relatively easy to implement. 

In autumn 2013, the twelve founding members of N.I.C.E. 

met at the Dortmunder U – to evaluate the N.I.C.E. Award 

piloting in June 2013 and to take a decision on the final 

format of the N.I.C.E. Award in the upcoming years. The 

key question was still on the table: is an award the right 

approach anyway? After all, an award ceremony cannot be 

13

The next years will pose new challenges to N.I.C.E. and 

thus the N.I.C.E. Award as well. Has the N.I.C.E. Award 

already reached the limits of its model? How can it grow 

even further? How can it become more influential? Once 

again, N.I.C.E. is called upon: it has to find and invent 

innovative structures once again and carry its measures 

forward. 

N.I.C.E. was invited to the European Culture Forum of the 

European Commission in 2016. It thus entered Brussels’ 

key platform for cultural politics only three years after its 

foundation. This is where N.I.C.E. presented its definition 

of innovation – not only theoretically but by presenting 

two dozens of successful projects from the N.I.C.E. Exhibitions 

of 2014 und 2015. 

What would the European Commission possibly say today 

if it was asked “What is innovation?“ 

2014: URBANAUTS from Vienna received the 

third prize of the award 2014. 

calls related to topics of social relevance for the years 

2014 and 2015. In 2014, the European Union’s new funding 

policy for spillover effects of culture and the creative 

economy gave the impetus for the N.I.C.E. Award. 

The N.I.C.E. Call in 2014 received 108 applications from 22 

countries – the shortlist of ten nominees was met with such 

interest that the N.I.C.E. Exhibition from Essen (June 2014) 

toured to Mannheim (December 2014) and Graz (March 

2015). More than 1,500 visitors saw the ten most innovative 

projects from culture and the creative industries in Europe. 

When the N.I.C.E. initiators met in Graz in spring 2015 for 

the opening of the N.I.C.E. Exhibition, which took place within 

the scope of Designmonat Graz, they agreed on further 

establishing the social relevance of the N.I.C.E. Award. 

A working group composed of Charles Landry, Arantxa 

Mendiharat and Bernd Fesel worked on the call for 2015 for 

weeks. Based on their international experience, this call 

finally emerged: 

“Solving the World’s Major Challenges“. 

The involved topic alone, namely that arts and culture can 

help address and solve the key problems of our time, attracted 

attention – at a time when due to tight public budgets, 

the spending on culture was about to be significantly cut in 

the Netherlands, UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal and France. 

At least today, leading cities, researchers and stakeholders 

of culture and the creative industries in Europe who 

are organised in N.I.C.E. can give a joint answer: 

“Innovation is about creating new or better value for 

society, companies or individuals. Innovations are new 

solutions that resolve from needs or demands in everyday 

life or the surrounding society. 

The value arises from making use of or adapt an idea. 

Value can be created in many forms: economic, social 

or environmental values. Innovation can happen in small 

steps (incremental innovation) or in big leaps (radical 

innovation). The Organisation for Economic Co-operation 

and Development (OECD) divides innovation in levels of 

newness: it can be new for the organisation, new for the 

market (or used in another area) or new for the entire 

world. Values for society are created when new ideas are 

adopted and spread. The word innovation covers both the 

process to develop new solutions as well as the results of 

the process; the solutions itself.” 3 

To include this open notion of cultural and creative 

innovation in daily debates in art and culture, in politics 

and administration as well as in teaching and research, 

N.I.C.E. established a Twitter channel reporting on cultural 

innovation on a daily basis: @nice_network. 

The response to the N.I.C.E. Call 2015 was overwhelming 

with 213 submissions from 29 countries: this was the breakthrough 

in international awareness but also proof of recognition 

given the high quality of submissions. 

The shortlist was extended to 15 nominees, which also 

enlarged the exhibition, for which several cooperation 

requests were submitted during the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr 

already: Donostia/San Sebastián, North East England, Krakow 

and Mannheim expressed an interest in presenting the 

exhibition. 

3 

Source: The Swedish 

Innovation Strategy, the 

Swedish Ministry of Enterprise, 

Energy and Communications, 

2012, p. 9. 

14


The N.I.C.E. Award is about 

the hopes of cultural and 

creative players to become 

a respected innovator in 

society creating a better future. 

2014: Performance of the pianist Davide Martello within 

the vernissage of the N.I.C.E. Exhibition. 

15

N.I.C.E. 

Partners 2015 

Zentrum für Kunsttransfer 

[ID] factory 

16

Tallinn 

North East England 

Birmingham 

Rotterdam 

Ruhr Region 

London 

Maastricht 

Mannheim 

Krakow 

Košice 

Vienna 

Milan 

Bilbao 

Barcelona 

Lisboa 

17

18

In this process world-famous institutions 

which are internationally financed and 

secured, met up on an equal footing with 

creative lone fighters, who plan from year 

to year, from week to week, finance themselves 

and simply ‘struggle along‘ somehow. 

19

N.I.C.E. at the Forum 

d‘Avignon Ruhr 2015: 

A pop-up laboratory for 

cultural and creative 

innovations 

213 dynamic makers from the Cultural and 

Creative Industries of 29 countries worldwide 

responded to the N.I.C.E. Award´s 2015 call – “Solving the 

World`s Major Challenges“ – and competed with highly 

innovative projects for the award of 20,000 Euros. The 

international jury, chaired by Charles Landry, nominated 

15 of the 213 applicants for the shortlist and the N.I.C.E. 

Exhibition, plus a Special Guest, and invited them to the 

Forum d’Avignon Ruhr for the presentation, judging and 

award ceremony. 

Sneak preview 

Innovations very often have a pioneering function; thus 

not only new things are invented, but also changes in 

the nearest environment are initiated. All of the N.I.C.E. 

nominees met up in Essen, the day before the Forum 

d´Avignon Ruhr. After they had arrived at the hotel, they 

visited the N.I.C.E. Exhibition, which was still being set 

up and brought to life in the Gallery ”Alte Mitte“ before 

the evening programme; a sneak preview. 

After the private view of the exhibition and a first getting 

to know one another, the next stop for the N.I.C.E. 

nominees was an evening of networking in the Unperfekthaus. 

The way from the Gallery ”Alte Mitte“ to the 

Unperfekthaus – a way through the urban change of 

the Creative.Quarter City Nord.Essen, initiated among 

others by the Cultural and Creative Industries – provided 

the international guests and those from outside the 

region with the first opportunity to experience tangibly 

a part of the Ruhr region, to ask questions and immerse 

themselves in it. A guided tour through the quarter by 

Anika Ellwart, on behalf of the City of Essen’s Cultural 

Office, combined information with specific examples 

and places. The Unperfekthaus as a highlight for innovators 

is also, of course, a genius loci – dynamic people 

from the whole world, who tackle the problems of our 

time with cultural solutions, cannot encounter anything 

more symbolic in Essen. The initiator and manager of 

the Unperfekthaus, Reinhard Wiesemann, won the 

N.I.C.E. Award 2014 with his project UNPERFEKTLabs. But 

the evening in the Unperfekthaus did not only want to 

promote the Creative.Quarter City Nord.Essen, but also 

to offer a climate and an informal atmosphere to even 

make, at best, cooperation partners out of competitors 

for an award: the open spaces of the Unperfekthaus 

were the ideal locality for this and contributed to informal 

communication. For three hours they talked, reported 

and discussed; there emerged an informal association 

of dynamic people, who had met one another here 

for the first time, but who obviously were and are closely 

connected with one another. 

In this process world-famous institutions, such as the 

Fraunhofer Gesellschaft or the University of Manchester, 

which are internationally financed and secured, met up 

on an equal footing with creative lone fighters, who plan 

from year to year, from week to week, finance themselves 

and simply “struggle along” somehow. One of the 

aims of this evening was to gain mutual respect, not 

only for the opposite number’s innovation project, but 

also for the other person’s respective starting position. 

Innovation processes in established institutions can be 

just as difficult and have to contend with extreme hindrances 

just as much as lone fighters, who have too little 

time and money available to promote their innovations. 

These very different worlds of project initiators met up 

together in the Unperfekthaus: “Do-It-Yourself versus Establishment“ 

– this line-up is all too familiar and certainly 

a cliché which is often used, but is also a part of the 

truth, a complementarity which can be used to exploit 

potential in the common promotion of innovative ideas 

and processes. 

20

N.I.C.E. AT THE FORUM D‘AVIGNON RUHR 2015 

2015: Jury meeting with the N.I.C.E. Shortlist 

(from left to right) Arantxa Mendiharat, Charles Landry, 

Barbara Abel. 

N.I.C.E. Jury — there 

are only winners! 

The next morning the day for all of the nominees began 

with the competition for the award: in the morning 

of 22 September the international jury invited all the 

project initiators to the exhibition for a discussion – thus 

the project presentations were an integral part of the 

jury discussion. The jury meeting was conceived less 

as a pitch for an expert discussion among the projects 

exhibited than as a discussion, a dialogue about content, 

values and the potential of change which the respective 

application for the N.I.C.E. Award could trigger. What 

could be the real or realistic contribution of the nominated 

projects to the solution of a worldwide problem? 

2015: Along with the submission evaluations, the discussion 

with the jury had a deciding influence over final placement. 

(from left to right) Prof Kurt Mehnert, Philippe Bertrand is 

representing the project THE MACHINE TO BE ANOTHER. 

21

The jury was not only supposed to discuss a project’s degree 

of innovation but also the possible or the real effectiveness 

of this innovation in solving a certain challenge 

which is of global relevance – such as, for example, water 

or housing shortages – taking into consideration the 

consequences for poverty, migration and wars. Such an 

impact assessment is anything but trivial, since there are 

quite a lot of innovations that have created other ways 

and solutions for which they were not initially intended, 

respectively these were rather discovered by chance. 

Aspirin seems to be one of the most prominent examples; 

and in the cultural area the concept of big data 

should be mentioned – big data did not originate to write 

bestsellers or to develop popular in-house productions of 

video-on-demand suppliers. From 12.30 pm the jury met 

in the Unperfekthaus and went into a closed meeting 

for four hours – separated from the visual influences of 

the exhibition or the project presentations. Finally the 

choice fell unanimously on the project “THE MACHINE TO 

BE ANOTHER“ – a project which does not create any new 

innovative productions like houses, furniture or software, 

but which is an artistic process which “produces“ an 

inner value, a feeling: empathy. 

The next day, this turned into a big surprise – especially 

for a Ministry of Economic Affairs which funds the 

award and whose minister should present it: empathy as 

cultural innovation? What is new and innovative about 

empathy? How can empathy contribute to the solution 

of global challenges? How can it change something? It 

cannot even be circulated as a global app – or can it? The 

jury’s choice is also a challenge to our understanding of 

innovation as well as that of problem-solving. But before 

the award ceremony the next day and against the background 

of all these exciting questions, there were still 

further points on the nominees’ agenda. 

2015: Guided tour through the Creative.Quarter City Nord.Essen 

with the nominees. 

2015: Opening speeaches at the 

N.I.C.E. Exhibition: Prof Dieter Gorny. 

At the same time as the jury was in conference an international 

group of journalists, led by the NRW KULTURsekretariat, 

visited the N.I.C.E. Exhibition in the afternoon 

and held individual conversations with the nominees. 

This reporting about the temporary laboratory for innovations 

also attracted the attention of social networks 

like Twitter and Facebook on the same day: more than 

50,000 users could be reached in this afternoon – visibility 

and communication for each nominee were, and are 

one of the additional values of the N.I.C.E. programme. 

22

N.I.C.E. Exchange 


The format N.I.C.E. Exchange offered the N.I.C.E. Shortlist 

candidates the opportunity of a pitch on which to 

meet potential partners from the region. In addition 

to the N.I.C.E. projects, 20 individuals enrolled for this 

format including, among others, well known multipliers 

from the Ruhr region such as the Creative Class Ruhr 

Professional Association, the Fraunhofer UMSICHT/Innovative 

Citizen, representatives of the institutions Stadt- 

BauKultur NRW, KlimaExpo.NRW and the NRW KULTURsekretariat 

as well as the innovative creative company 

3D Druckzentrum Ruhr (3D Printing Centre Ruhr). 

The aim of N.I.C.E. Exchange is to offer the nominees 

an additional value as specific as possible to promote 

their projects further. Since the projects were in different 

phases of realisation – from prototypes like “Fontus and 

Airo“ up to European-wide tested projects like “Climate 

for Culture“ – it was a question of creating a mixture of 

additional values: network partners, investors, providers 

of ideas, promoters were in demand in great cultural, 

creative and entrepreneurial diversity. Thus the nominees 

were brought together for dialogues with the Exchange 

participants on the basis of small groups in a world café 

format – at each time always in front of the exhibit on 

the easel which served to present the project. 

After an exciting and concentrated three hours stock 

was taken all of the participants were able to make a 

note of their impressions on a presentation board in a 

concluding feedback round. They concluded that it was 

intensive in a very short time, too intensive for some 

since the range of interests was so diverse. The nominees 

would also have liked the Exchange participants to have 

introduced themselves and stated their interests reciprocally. 

In addition the participating parties expressed 

a strong desire to extend the format and especially to 

encourage the integration of potential local partners. 

The flow of information has to be further increased and 

coordinated with the expectations and needs of the 

participants before the actual event. This shows that 

although laboratories may be for a short period and 

temporary, they still need several months of preparation 

to transfer know-how and align interests. 

The evening of the 

N.I.C.E. Vernissage — 

London, Paris, Milan, 

Hamburg, Berlin in 

Essen! 

More than 150 inquisitive persons from the Ruhr region, 

from all over Germany and from other European countries 

filled up the Gallery ”Alte Mitte“ on the eve of the 

Forum d’Avignon Ruhr. Many of the forum d’Avignon 

Ruhr’s faithful visitors came from London, Paris, Milan 

and also from Hamburg and Berlin, but there were also 

new faces – the N.I.C.E. Exhibition celebrated a great 

success with this number of visitors. 

In his opening speech Prof Dieter Gorny constituted that 

the N.I.C.E. Exhibition was a credit to the central “co-designers 

of international cooperations and the drivers of 

innovative approaches to action […] whereby others can 

only discuss what could not be discussed without your 

work” It is not only an exhibition, but an open platform 

for dialogues and the dynamic people of our future, who 

often receive too little attention in the classic media 

such as TV and print. This evening of the N.I.C. E. Vernissage 

was a meeting place for dynamic people of new 

interfaces of culture, politics and economics to society.“ 

These designers of change have indeed clearly separate 

interests, yet they are connected by the common 

desire for social and open recognition of their work. This 

evening, an important step was made in this direction. 

Karl-Uwe Bütof, Head of Department for location 

policy, services, clusters, foreign trade in the Ministry for 

Economic Affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia visited the 

vernissage and set an example with a statement in his 

opening speech: “The obvious diversity in the projects 

submitted as well as the nationalities of the applicants, 

finalists and participants in the N.I. C.E. Award speak for 

themselves in relation to the overlapping innovative spirit 

of the sector. Our whole state profits from the network 

character as symbolized by this award within the framework 

of the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr.” 

23

“The obvious diversity in the projects 

submitted as well as the nationalities 

of the applicants, finalists and 

participants in the N.I.C.E. Award 

speak for themselves in relation 

to the overlapping innovative spirit 

of the sector.“ 

Karl-Uwe Bütof 

2015: The N.I.C.E. Exhibition was 

presented in the Gallery ”Alte 

Mitte“ located in the heart of 

the Creative.Quarter. 

24

N.I.C.E. Vernissage 

Welcome speeches 

Speakers at the Vernissage of the N.I.C.E. Exhibition 

Photo: BVMI/Markus Nass 

Photo: Sebastian Drüen 

Photo: Kerstin Stelter 

Photo: charleslandry.com 


(Managing Director, 

european centre for 

creative economy) 

Karl-Uwe Bütof 

(Head of Department in the 

Ministry for Economic Affairs, 

Energy and Industry of the 

State of North Rhine-Westphalia) 

Karola Geiß-Netthöfel 

(Managing Director, 

Regionalverband Ruhr 

(Ruhr Regional Association)) 

Charles Landry 

(Founder, Comedia) 

“The focus of the N.I.C.E. Award 2015 is to 

honour digital, cultural solutions to the challenges 

of this world and to present best practice examples 

from throughout Europe,” says Prof Dieter Gorny the 

night before the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr. In the course of 

the vernissage of the N.I.C.E. Exhibition, he explains that 

the N.I.C.E. Award is meant to bring significant added 

value to the scene: “All too often, we discuss social 

challenges in North Rhine-Westphalia and in Europe. And 

yet there are some people who have already developed 

projects leading to creative solutions and innovations for 

different fields of activity. Those are covered by the 

N.I.C.E. Award just as much as the impulses and dynamics 

evoked by these projects.” Prof Dieter Gorny points 

out that in times when it is hard to grasp Europe as a 

union, inspiration and cooperation across national 

borders have not only become an important driver for 

innovation, but also support the European idea. “So 

that’s why it has become a tradition, a symbol, if you will, 

to open the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr with the exhibition of 

the N.I.C.E. Award.” 

“Dear nominees,” concludes Prof Dieter Gorny his speech, 

“you are important co-creators of international cooperations 

and drivers for innovative approaches – while others 

just talk about things which would not exist without your 

work. And this is a perfect example for the Forum d’Avignon 

Ruhr and its framework programme – after all, both 

the vernissage and tomorrow’s conference will be held 

at the same place, the Northern part of the Inner City of 

Essen (Creative.Quarter City Nord.Essen), where change 

is taking place every day thanks to active and personal 

commitment.” 

Karl-Uwe Bütof also focuses on the location where the 

Forum d’Avignon Ruhr takes place: the Creative.Quarter 

City Nord.Essen. He himself had lived in Essen for 30 

years, and he still thinks often about the mentality, the 

culture and the economic developments in North Rhine-Westphalia 

and in the Ruhr region in particular. He 

agrees with Garrelt Duin, Minister for Economic Affairs, 

Energy and Industry of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, 

that specific, positive examples from stakeholders 

who make the change tangible are important for 

the future of the region. “In my position as head of the 

Department for State Economic Policy, Industry, Service 

Sector and Clusters in this Ministry,” continues Bütof, “I 

am aware of the fact that the N.I.C.E. Award is founded 

on an exemplary European cooperation; at the same time 

it is an excellent initiator of innovation. You can say that 

this award has already established itself.” 

According to Bütof, the innovation potential of the creative 

industries is not yet fully recognised in large parts 

of North Rhine-Westphalia. He strongly hopes that this 

will change soon. Because the Cultural and Creative 

Industries are a driver for change, also with respect to 

the labour market, and they are an indispensible part 

of the economic reality – today and in the future. “The 

obvious diversity of both the submitted projects and the 

nationalities of applicants, finalists and participants of 

the N.I.C.E. Award send a clear signal with respect to the 

industry’s cross-national hunger for innovation. The entire 

federal state will benefit from this networking notion 

symbolised by this award within the context of the Forum 

d’Avignon Ruhr.” In the same sense, the City of Essen and 

the rest of Europe will benefit from this spirit of change 

and cooperation. “I personally find it very stimulating 

to take in all these inspirations,” concludes Bütof. “The 

entire Forum d’Avignon Ruhr makes me look forward to 

the future and raises awareness for the social task of the 

Cultural and Creative Industries.” 

25

Prof Dieter Gorny states that this social dimension is 

already clearly in the focus of the creative industries 

within the municipalities, which was also the aim of the 

European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010. At this point, 

Managing Director of the Regionalverband Ruhr (Ruhr 

Regional Association) Karola Geiß-Netthöfel takes the 

floor, accompanied by a round of applause. She agrees 

with the previous speakers by pointing out the great 

innovation and inspiration potential of the Cultural and 

Creative Industries. In the Ruhr region, there already is a 

tradition of innovation in industrial design, for instance, 

but also when it comes to international exchange: a total 

of 225 town twinnings have been established with cities 

that form part of the Ruhr Regional Association. Thanks 

to ecce, these future-oriented traditions are filled with 

new life, true to the European Capital of Culture’s motto 

“Change through Culture – Culture through Change”. A 

mission statement, which is also the essence of the Forum 

d’Avignon Ruhr and the N.I.C.E. Award. 

“At the heart of the matter it is all about cooperation,” 

concludes Geiß-Netthöfel. “An innovative network, as defined 

by the European Union, that can go beyond sectoral 

and national borders.” She mentions the cooperation of 

institutions, which serve as an example within the N.I.C.E. 

partnership. Such cooperation, says Geiß-Netthöfel, is 

often less developed between governments. This is why 

being able to entertain a cooperation of the Ministry of 

Culture and the Ministry for Economic Affairs in the Ruhr 

region is something to be proud of. 

2015: Prof Dieter Gorny at the 

Vernissage of the N.I.C.E. Exhibition. 

2015: (from left to right) Prof Dieter Gorny, 

Karl-Uwe Bütof, Karola Geiß-Netthöfel, 

Claudia Jericho, Charles Landry, 

Prof Kurt Mehnert, Axel Ganz. 

2015: (from left to right) Karola-Geiß Netthöfel, 

Reinhard Krämer. 

26


2015: Visitors of the N.I.C.E. Exhibition. 

2015: The concert of the Ensemble Ruhr within the 

vernissage presented by Kreative Klasse Berufsverband Ruhr 

(Professional Association of the Creative Class Ruhr). 

27

2015: Visitors and the N.I.C.E. Shortlist at the Vernissage 

in the Gallery “Alte Mitte“. 

28


2015: 

(top left) Visitors during the opening speeches at the 

N.I.C.E. Vernissage. 

(bottom right) Hervé Digne and Prof Dieter Gorny. 

29

30


By enhancing the visibility of cultural innovations, 

the N.I.C.E. Award is an important 

contribution to the success of the Europe 

2020 strategy. 

31

Network meeting 

at the 

Forum d’Avignon Ruhr 

2015 

2015: Network meeting of the N.I.C.E. Partners: (from left to right) Mikel Goni, 

Thomas Weiß, Robert Piaskowski, Justyna Jochym, Sebastian Dresel, 

Dr Anna Stoffregen, Andrea Wisotzki, Andreas Piwek, Bernd Fesel. 

At least once a year, the Network for Innovations 

in Culture and Creativity (N.I.C.E.) organises 

a partner meeting to discuss the network’s goals and 

developments for the following months. In addition to 

the focus of the network’s activities, these meetings also 

provide for a constant exchange of partners and the 

establishment of new cooperation projects. In 2015, all 

members met in Graz in May and then at the Forum 

d’Avignon Ruhr in Essen in September. 

The meetings are not exclusively open to N.I.C.E. members, 

potential partners who are interested in the network 

are also welcome to join in. So at the meeting in Essen 

we were delighted to welcome representatives of the 

Krakow Festival Office and Donostia/San Sebastián 2016, 

who wanted to gain deeper knowledge of the network 

and were interested in becoming members themselves. 

Since several events relating to the N.I.C.E. Award 2015 

were taking place at the same time, the focus was on 

the development of the award and the plans for the year 

2016. In the future, the focus will remain on digitisation. 

The aim of the network is to look for farsighted ideas 

and projects that go beyond the issues and discussions 

of 2015. 

At the time the network was founded, the N.I.C.E. Award 

was considered as a tool to increase the visibility of those 

projects and institutions in the Cultural and Creative 

Industries that enable spillover effects into other social 

areas. This is still the priority objective of all partners. 

There is a mutual agreement, however, to jointly work on 

more concrete results in the future – for example through 

more targeted mentoring and networking for the winners 

of the award and methodological matching with the 

economy. 

The N.I.C.E. Exhibition is another factor to increase the 

visibility of the projects and the network, which will be 

displayed by the respective partners – the exhibition 

venues for the next year were discussed at the network 

meeting as well. In addition, winners of the N.I.C.E. 

Award are supposed to be given the opportunity to give 

presentations at conferences and workshops throughout 

Europe. In this way, the partners are hoping for a broader 

coverage and real networking effects. 

32


2015: Impressions of the network meeting 

of the N.I.C.E. Partners. 

33

Impressions 

of the N.I.C.E. 

Exhibition 

2013–2015 

34

N.I.C.E. EXHIBITION 

35

36

N.I.C.E. EXHIBITION 

Following its premiere in Essen, the exhibition 

was presented during the cultural festival ‚ 

‘Nachtwandel‘ in Mannheim in autumn 2014. 

In spring 2015, it was even an official item 

on the agenda at the renowned 

‘Designmonat Graz‘. 

37

The N.I.C.E. Award’s 

theme in 2015: 

“Solving the World’s Major 

Challenges — A Call for 

Innovations“ 

The 2015 award challenged the cultural and 

creative sectors to propose surprising and 

experimental innovations that are solutions to difficult 

global problems – with special, but not exclusive, attention 

given to digital innovations. 

The following examples and questions give an idea of the 

breadth of the theme and were suggested to potential 

applicants as part of the call – other suggestions and 

proposals from within different fields and topics with 

effects across sectors were of course also more than 

welcomed: 

Cities are both growing exceptionally and also shrinking. 

Many are in danger of becoming dysfunctional and less 

liveable and sustainable. Which innovations coming from 

within the culture and creativity domain can help stop 

or turn around these trends? What is the role of digital 

innovations, such as creating seamless connectivity, 

re-designing mobility, enhancing information systems, 

improving way finding, monitoring health. What is the 

role, if any, of 3-D printing? 

Migration – either by choice or forced by wars and poverty 

– is a growing phenomenon in the melting pot of 

European cities. It increases cultural and ethnic diversity. 

This is a double edged sword as it both enriches our lives, 

but also creates misunderstandings, fears and violence: 

How can the cultural creative sectors contribute to 

resolving these challenges and foster mutual understanding? 

Is there a special potential for digital innovations 

from ebooks for children in native and foreign languages 

to new kinds of performances or events in traditional or 

unusual settings? 

schedules become more dominant. What does this mean 

for cultural consumption? It shifts our sense of self and 

how and where we consume culture from going to the cinema 

to attending concerts to experiencing urban art. In 

a digitalised world without dedicated spare time – what 

is the new shape of culture? Is it visiting cinemas or using 

Amazon Prime? Do you visit museums or access them via 

the Google Art Project? How could or must cultural and 

creative institutions (re-)act? 

Can the digital world enrich our experience of culture 

and if so how? Can it help increase our understanding of 

diversity of culture or of the potential of a more open society? 

Can it help make the world of the arts and culture 

more inclusive? 

In what other sectors can the cultural and creative sectors 

have a positive impact – for instance in supporting 

new models of intergenerational understanding or for 

the challenges of health and especially for the elderly? 

When the N.I.C.E. Call 2015 was designed and then published, 

Europe was in the pre-phase of mass migration 

and awakening of Big Data. Now – only six months later 

– Europe is changing rapidly by migration and as well by 

the digital shift – on a daily base we are reading about 

changes and challenges the European society thought 

to be years ahead. Not only the need for more solutions, 

but also the urgency for quicker innovations are at hand 

today. 

The N.I.C.E. Award must be seen today as part of a new 

growing movement in society to re-invent the social 

effectiveness of innovations: new and now! 

The digital revolution is radically changing work and the 

divide between work and play is breaking down as 24/7 

38

N.I.C.E. AWARD 2015 

The N.I.C.E. Award must be seen today as part 

of a new growing movement in society to reinvent 

the social effectiveness of innovations: 

new and now! 

2015: Winner project of the N.I.C.E. Award 

THE MACHINE TO BE ANOTHER. 

39


— INTERVIEWS SHORTLIST 

40

Project: 1D touch 

Presenter: 1D Lab 

Saint-Étienne, France 

Interviewee: Robin Vincent 

www.1d-lab.eu 

N.I.C.E. AWARD 2015 / SHORTLIST 

Photo: Pierre Grasset 

The N.I.C.E. Award 2015 is looking for new and stimulating 

innovations that are solutions to global problems. 

What problem do you address with your project? 

Digital disruption of cultural goods’ distribution – including 

streaming, legal and illegal downloading – has generated 

major drawbacks, particularly regarding the distribution 

of revenues and the promotion of independent creation. 

Current mainstream solutions and business models critically 

favour mass markets and big cultural industries rather than 

diversity and fair repartition of revenues. Inventive alternative 

approaches must be found to tackle this issue since 

the Cultural and Creative Industries are major industries in 

Europe. 

communities of individual users. This business model allows 

a fair distribution of related revenues towards content creators 

and free legal access to cultural goods for final users. 

The N.I.C.E. Award 2015 focusses on digital innovation 

through culture. How do you see the cultural sector 

influenced by digitalisation? 

Digitalisation is the biggest chance that the EU on one side 

and cultural players on the other side have. Digitalisation 

will improve the way cultural players work and will create a 

stronger connection with the audience. The cultural sector 

will have to adapt itself to audience usages and propose 

new experiences thanks to digital tools. 

What are the creative and business characteristics of 

your project? Can both, business and creativity, be 

distinguished clearly? 

To sustain its innovative approach, 1D Lab has invented a 

new business model, the Territorial Creative Contribution, 

which relies on a B-to-B-to-C approach: public or private 

third parties (e.g. libraries, public transport companies, city 

councils, work councils) that are the actual clients of 1D 

Lab pay the access to the platform for the benefit of their 

41

Project: Climate for Culture 

Presenter: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft for the Advancement 

of Applied Research, Brussels, Belgium 

Interviewees: Dr Johanna Leissner; Dr Ralf Kilian 

www.climateforculture.eu 

Photo: Fraunhofer IBP 




We address the urgent problem of climate change – what is 

the impact of climate change on cultural heritage? For this, 

we have combined climate modelling with whole building 

simulation for the first time ever. With this new procedure 

we can predict how the changing climate affects outdoor 

and indoor climates in historic buildings. We can also predict 

how much energy will be needed in the future for the HVAC 

(heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) of new and historic 

buildings. This will help decision makers to find the most 

sustainable and cost effective solutions – thus saving money 

and resources and helping to preserve our cultural heritage for 

future generations. 

What reactions have you received yet? Is the world ready 

for your solutions? 

Climate for Culture has received enormous feedback – from 

the general public, the media and from the science and cultural 

heritage field. Our partners National Trust and Bavarian 

Administration of State-Owned State Palaces, Gardens and 

Lakes have already transferred theoretical knowledge into 

practice: They are using building simulation tools to understand 

whether energy-saving interventions such as increased 

insulation cause undesirable consequences such as cold bridges 

and condensation or which technology provides safe climate 

conditions. With the help of building simulation it could 

be demonstrated that conservation heating consumes less 

than half the energy of comfort heating and thus contributes 

to the National Trust’s target of reducing energy consumption 

by 20 percent by 2020 (compared to 2008). 


your project? Can both, business and creativity, be distinguished 

clearly? 

Creative characteristics of the project were the combination 

of climate science, building physics and economics with the 

cultural sector. This created innovation, but multidisciplinarity 

and transdisciplinarity are not easy to achieve – a fact that is 

often not respected and not valued. Business characteristics 

were the involvement of six small enterprises and one industrial 

partner who benefitted from the cutting edge research and 

allowed them to widen their expertise and offer new services. 

Creativity and business could be clearly distinguished. 

42


Project: Data Ethical Culture Observatory 

Presenter: Forum d‘Avignon 

Paris, France 

Interviewees: Laure Kaltenbach; Olivier Le Guay 

www.forum-avignon.org 

Photo: Boligan 




The main problems we aim to address are trust and integrity. 

More than 20 years ago, as we faced the challenges 

and dangers of genetic manipulation, mankind was able 

to find a universal response to the protection of the human 

genome, a humanist concern, which led to the “Universal 

Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights”, 

ratified by UNESCO on 11 November of 1997. 

Now, thanks to the digital revolution, personal data – digital 

prints – constitute our digital DNA. Every day the universal 

awareness grows, nourished by citizens and consumers, on 

the risk of personal data and digital identity manipulation. 

The same individual risks should bring the same universal 

answers. We want a society which is data-supported – not 

data-driven. 

What reactions have you received yet? Is the world 

ready for your solutions? 

We launched it in autumn 2014 and 200 international 

signatories supported the action, relayed by the press as 

the “Preliminary Declaration of the Digital Human Rights” 

(available in eight languages on www.ddhn.org). As of 

today, the civil society’s mobilisation grows strongly on 

the urge of a „data ethical culture” and business practices 

respectful of personal identities and data sharing between 

the stakeholders of the different economic ecosystems. Last 

December, Morocco promoted the “Preliminary Declaration 

of Digital Human Rights”. And the development continues 

as data protection legislation becomes the norm in European 

countries, following the “right to be forgotten”, decided 

by the European Court of Justice. The next step is the awareness 

of the UNESCO: We have met its Director-General 

Irina Bokova and sent a complete file to the members. It 

took more than six years for the ratification of the “Universal 

Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights”. 

We have seen concrete moves towards a “Declaration of the 

Digital Human Rights” in the last year – now we need help 

from different countries to extend the process and awareness. 




Digitalisation is a chance for culture and the cultural sector 

but it has to be led by an ethic of trust and transparency, as 

our digital identity and creativity has become the main currency 

in a data-driven society. An ethical personal data valorisation 

and the respect for copyright must be the pillars 

of a creativity-driven society. We believe in a Europe which 

enhances the value of its cultures’ and heritages’ diversity 

and ensures the freedom of expression of its creators – a 

guarantee on which the protection of their rights depends. 

43

Project: Education In Place of War 

Presenter: In Place of War, University of Manchester 

Manchester, United Kingdom 

Interviewee: Inés Soria-Donlan 

www.inplaceofwar.net 

Photo: Ruth Daniel 




Education in Place of War (IPOW) is a creative entrepreneurial 

programme that builds on ten years of work by IPOW, 

working globally within a range of contexts with marginalised, 

under-resourced and war affected communities. IPOW 

began to recognise the value that creativity has within 

these communities and started delivering informal creative 

entrepreneurial programmes on the ground. In 2011, UNES- 

CO also identified the importance of the creative industries 

to social and economic well-being and long-term sustainability 

in developing countries. However, there is a gap 

between this creativity and the ability and knowledge to 

monetise it. Responding to this need, IPOW offers a blended 

learning package of resources, developed with 40 international 

partners. 



The project was developed from a need identified by the 

global communities that we work with and has been met 

with such a high demand – there were requests from over 15 

countries – that we already have a waiting list for delivery 

of the project post-pilot. Feedback from pilot participants 

has been extremely positive and powerful, directly influencing 

the creation of new projects devised by young people 

in their local communities. The following is one of many 

examples: “I am an ex-street kid. From this programme, I 

have devised a complete business plan that I can now put 

into action in my community in Gulu. I could never have 

done this without this programme.” (Ivan aka Acholi Prince, 

Uganda CEP Pilot participant) 




IPOW works at the juncture of creativity and business by 

championing creative entrepreneurship as a tool for social 

change. We recognise that to be a successful entrepreneur, 

creative thinking is the key. As artists these young people 

possess these core skills, but sometimes require additional 

tools to translate them into a more strategic context. IPOW 

does this through modules on business planning, marketing, 

alternative economic models, evaluation and a range of 

international case studies. Rather than focusing on traditional 

funding and development routes which are often 

inaccessible in such challenging contexts we ask participants 

to think creatively about how they can make their 

project happen and be sustainable: “The young people who 

participated [...] made it very clear that they have had their 

eyes opened. […] They understood that they could come up 

with ideas and just start. They didn’t need money [or] to 

think about bureaucracy or lack of equipment, they could 

just begin by working with others.” (Tina Ellen-Lee, Director 

of Opera Circus, Bosnia pilot partner) 

44


Project: Fontus and Airo 

Presenter and interviewee: Kristof Retezár 

Vienna, Austria 

www.fontus.at 

Photo: Kristof Retezár 




Water scarcity may be one of the most underestimated resource 

issues facing the world today. In 15 years, 47 percent 

of the world´s population will be living in areas of high 

water stress. Nevertheless, the earth’s atmosphere contains 

constantly huge amounts of mostly unexploited freshwater. 

Fontus and Airo is an attempt to discover these resources 

and bring alternative ways of gaining drinkable water from 

the air. 







The digital world has cast misleading conceptions upon the 

changes it triggered in the overall cultural aspects of our 

societies. We must not forget that digitalisation is merely 

the emergence of advanced tools for creative and cultural 

creation. But we are still in the midst of the process of being 

the user of these tools and therefore the creator of our own 

culture. Great responsibility lies with the designers of digital 

tools in not producing limited and conditioned instruments, 

based on vested interests, leading to one-sided and manipulated 

ways of communication. 

Fontus and Airo can be featured as a fancy outdoor accessory 

targeting adventurers and extreme athletes. Moreover, 

it can also be translated into a low-tech device targeting 

audiences with lower budgets and serious water issues. One 

target group could support the other and create a supportive 

cycle. 

45

Project: HELIX Studio 

Presenter: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust Hospitals, 

the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, 

London, United Kingdom Interviewee: Adrian Friend 

www.helixcentre.com 

Photo: Marco Godoy 




HELIX Studio tests the role of frugal innovation in healthcare 

flying-pop-ups which are quickly and easily assembled and 

disassembled in targeted high-value “meanwhile projects”. 

These are rehabilitating hospitals and existing healthcare 

infrastructures promoting low cost user centred solutions 

which can be adopted more quickly by health systems, 

utilising ideas that are reusable by design. They are part of 

a sustainable resource efficient circular economy based on a 

socialised, multi-author construction ethic espoused by the 

HELIX Studio that mimics the in-the-field design processes 

housed within, to deliver creative user-centred design expertise 

and improve the care that patients receive. 




Creative characteristics can be found in applied in-field use 

of digital technologies and manufacturing in the design 

of the new HELIX Studio and the delivery of user-centred 

product design services that the HELIX Studio offers to 

the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS). The 

business characteristics exist in HELIX having an identity 

for design in the NHS that serves as a place for the HELIX 

Studio to collaborate with the hospital community, a hub 

for innovation events, and as a versatile workspace for the 

everyday activities of the design team. Above all, having a 

design studio embedded in the NHS makes a bold statement 

telling the hospital community that we, the design 

industry, are here to learn from each other, work together 

and make improvements in healthcare delivery. 

The N.I.C.E. Award 2015 focuses on digital innovation 



In the HELIX Studio, digitalisation is bringing manufacturing 

techniques via designers in the field closer to the patient 

(end-user client) allowing the application of prototypes and 

greater testing that both refines the final design economics 

and offers speedy turn-around from concept to final product 

that has rarely been seen before in 21 st century healthcare. 

Cultural spin-offs from this include a rising awareness 

of the value of good design to improving the quality of the 

healthcare environment as much as easing the provision 

and implementation of newer medical technologies. This is 

already starting to happen in palliative care provision in the 

United Kingdom such as at the Maggie’s Centres, each of 

which is designed by an internationally recognised architect. 

46


Project: ROOM IN A BOX 

Presented by: Palm and Dissen GbR 

Berlin, Germany 

Interviewees: Lionel Palm; Gerald Dissen 

www.roominabox.de 

Photo: Palm & Dissen GbR 




The goal of ROOM IN A BOX is to offer a new way of living 

by designing a set of beautiful and ultra-portable furniture 

made of renewable raw materials which can be one 

hundred per cent recycled at the end of their life cycle. 

Contemporary furniture is mostly made of a mixture of materials 

such as wood, plastic and metal. Besides high input 

costs, another down side is the weight: Common furniture 

is heavy and even though big distributors try to optimise 

the size of the packaging, the transportation – even of the 

unassembled parts – is not easy to handle. This results in a 

situation where even big players on the market have trouble 

delivering interior products to the customer in a short delivery 

time. Since ROOM IN A BOX specialises in eco-friendly 

furniture made of cardboard, a lot of the problems do not 

apply to us. Our furniture reaches our customers with the 

support of standard parcel services and can easily be moved 

to a new place in the same way. 




If you decide to start a business in the creative industry, you 

almost have to be insane to really think that it will work. We 

at ROOM IN A BOX need people that can freely think out 

of the box to come up with creative product concepts. But 

on the other hand we also need to be very well organised to 

ramp up the production, the logistics, the customer service, 

the marketing, the accounting, and to make sure that we 

comply with all norms and laws at the same time. If you 

are a three person start-up, this all needs to be done by 

the same people. You need the power of creative chaos to 

enable unique ideas and the calm attitude and strictness of 

an accountant at the same time. So yes, it can be distinguished, 

and no, it cannot. 




To us the main power digitalisation unleashes and its 

impact on human culture lies in the new ability to publish. 

Once, the ability to publish was only available among the 

rich and the powerful. Digitalisation democratised the power 

to easily publish thoughts, political opinions, literature 

or any content (also products like these of ROOM IN A BOX) 

among everyone with access to an internet-enabled device. 

Thus, digitalisation is a powerful amplifier which enables an 

easy distribution of new ideas and discourse contributions 

to the masses. It allows for change and broadens cultural 

diversity. If there was no internet connection, search engines, 

crowdfunding sites or webshops, it would have been 

much harder for ROOM IN A BOX to see the light of day. 

47

Project: Smart Citizen 

Presenter: Fab Lab Barcelona and Institute of Advanced 

Architecture of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain 

Interviewees: Guillem Camprodon; Tomas Diez 

www.smartcitizen.me 

Photos: Smart Citizen Team 




Cities are the largest creation of human kind. For many 

centuries we have been adding complexity and technology 

to the urban centres, creating places with the biggest 

problems we can find today in terms of sustainability and 

contamination of the planet. Being a huge producer of 

problems, cities offer at the same time great opportunities 

to address those problems by using available, accessible 

and open source technology. We believe that Smart Citizen 

can build an ecosystem of participation of citizens in the 

production of valuable data and information about our 

cities, which can help to better understand, transform and 

improve the places where next generations will live. Smart 

Citizen is about the appropriation of technology for taking 

over the active construction of the city. Our idea started 

with sensors and data visualisation, but we aim to grow and 

to develop applications and partnerships that will allow us 

to construct tools for the political participation of people in 

their city and to create a new data economy by implementing 

block chain technologies in the future versions of our 

platforms. 



We crowd-funded the development of the initial phase of 

the project twice with the result of close to 1,000 people 

who actually supported us with funds. Furthermore, we 

have been able to collaborate with large corporations like 

Intel and Cisco in special projects and events to develop 

Smart Citizen. At the same time, governments of cities like 

Amsterdam, Barcelona and Manchester have actively supported 

the deployment of Smart Citizen in order to align it 

with their Smart City strategies – which is a paradox, since 

Smart Citizen initially started as a critic exercise against 

the big brother and corporative approach of the Smart City 

agenda. We have been collaborating with researchers all 

over the world in universities like the University College London, 

the Royal College of Art, the MIT, among others, and 

in different projects related with them. Finally, we are now 

getting EU funding support to develop research around the 

technology and its implementation strategies in different 

cities in Europe. As the world is going open source, we are 

about to record the largest expansion of our project – from 

1,200 sensors and 3,200 users – and thus to play our part in 

the massive growth of the Internet of Things devices and 

open data applications. 




In Europe and most of the urbanised areas of the world it 

is almost impossible to talk about culture without talking 

about the digital revolution that we have been living in during 

the last 40 years. From computers to smartphones, our 

entire lives have dramatically changed, affecting how we 

learn, work, play, create and live. It is extremely important 

to create a culture with strong values on humanism through 

digital platforms, not only using screens and keyboards to 

represent traditional cultures, but by reframing the meaning 

of culture in a connected world and society. For us it 

is of high importance that these values are constructed 

around the open source and accessible knowledge on how 

things are made, how they can be shared and how they can 

be useful and valuable to others – and not just to create 

another start-up to make a little money and then be sold 

to a larger corporation. Digital culture should help build a 

new economy and a value set that can enhance the role of 

people in the production and control of their lives. 

48


Project: Smarter Than You Think 

Presenter: Savion Ray, Dyslexia International 

Brussels, Belgium 

Interviewees: Bisera Savoska; Patricia Lopes 

www.savionray.com 

Photo: Savion Ray, creative agency 




Dyslexia is a learning disorder affecting at least one in ten 

people worldwide. At the moment, people know very little 

about the condition and it is difficult for them to empathise 

with people who suffer from it. Innovation in technology 

can serve as a great tool to raise awareness and empathy 

towards people with dyslexia and therefore prevent self-esteem 

issues, depression and education interruptions. In our 

project, we use technology to simulate the reading experience 

of a dyslexic person in order to change their mindset 

about the condition. 



of how their reactions may influence others and become 

compassionate and supportive. 



influenced by digitalization? 

Digital solutions make it much easier for people to solve 

problems and open an array of new doors for creative 

expression. We are no longer limited by a medium and can 

interact with an exhibit in a much more direct manner or 

make the interaction more random than before. Moreover, 

it can make culture more accessible to people with disabilities 

of many sorts, making it easier for them to experience 

what they could not experience before. 

People that have participated in the experiment experience 

what it is like to be in the shoes of a dyslexic person. This 

experience creates understanding and support, just by having 

the knowledge of what it is like to be on the other side. 

In addition, even people who have not participated in the 

experiment themselves but have seen the video produced 

from the experiment, find themselves more understanding 

49

Project: Waves of Energy/Ardora 

Presenter: European Capital of Culture Donostia/ 

San Sebastián 2016, Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain 

Interviewees: Mikel Goni; Enara Garcia 

www.dss2016.eu 

Photo: Lau Arin Festibala 




For a long time, citizens have been apart from the decision-making 

areas and, furthermore, from the public cultural 

policies management field. They have been seen by policy 

makers as passive subjects and solely as receptors. Waves 

of Energy/Ardora is trying to tackle this breach and it aspires 

to contribute to the European general effort to put in place 

new ways for institutions and citizens to work together. Our 

project is a humble attempt to promote the openness of 

cultural management policies. 



Waves of Energy/Ardora is an ongoing project and it hasn‘t 

reached to the evaluation of the impact yet; nonetheless, 

we have collected opinions from the main players involved. 

We have been working with several officers from the local 

administration, and they have valued this program. The 

citizens who conform Ardora have also been evaluating 

every single working session – and their opinion has been 

great. Even the people applying for the grant of this scheme 

have given a very positive opinion when they heard about 

its working model. Therefore, the involved players made a 

very good reading of the experience, but there are still some 

edges to be softened as the agility of the system or the 

mistrust that sometimes participatory policies arise. 




Waves of Energy/Ardora is not directly a business related 

experience, but rather a working method for participatory 

policies that can be applied in a very broad range of fields. 

Creativity is not just tied to the arts. Cultural management 

can profit from this kind of creative participatory policies. 

At the end of the day, creativity is not just to be applied to 

the final products of companies. Processes can also take 

advantage of these innovative approaches, in any kind of 

human activity, especially in the case of the public sectors‘ 

endeavours. Due to the players meeting in this experience 

there is a great chance for transferability to the private sector, 

development of the method and adaptation to different 

environments. 

50

N.I.C.E. AWARD 2015 / SPECIAL GUEST: DIGITAL INNOVATION IN CULTURE 

Project: Deaf Magazine 

Presenter: Morphoria Design Collective GbR 

Düsseldorf, Germany 

Interviewees: Andreas Ruhe; Alexandros Michalakopoulos 

www.deafmagazine.de 

Photos: Alexandros Michalakopoulos, Andreas Ruhe 




With our project Deaf Magazine we use the connection 

between digital and analogue technology in a publishing 

product to make it more accessible for deaf and hearing 

impaired people. We are also trying to bridge the gap between 

the world of the hearing and the deaf community. 

There are many trends and key innovations in digital delivery 

for the cultural sector like social media, audio/visual content, 

IPTV and internet TV, 3D Printing, mobile apps, games, 

online archives and resources and user-generated content, 

which are still unknown territory for a big part of the cultural 

sector. It is time to rethink the possibilities in the way we 

produce, share and sustain cultural activity. 




The Deaf Magazine perfectly bridges the gap between 

business and creativity, in addition to digital and analogue. 

This mixture allows us to act in many different sectors and 

that is what makes it more interesting for our audience and 

investors. We are printing digital content. 



being influenced by digitalisation? 

51


— INTERVIEWS WINNERS 

52

N.I.C.E. AWARD 2015 / WINNERS 

Project: THE MACHINE TO BE ANOTHER 

Presenter: BeAnotherLab, Sao Paulo, Brazil 

Interviewees: Philippe Bertrand; Christian Cherene; 

Norma Deseke; JJ Devereaux; Daniel González Franco; 

Daanish Masood; Marte Roel; Arthur Tres 

www.themachinetobeanother.org 

Photo: I HATE FLASH 




BeAnotherLab researches the relationship between identity 

and empathy. We develop multi-sensory systems combining 

performance art, neuroscientific knowledge and digital 

technology to create interaction protocols for the medium 

of embodied virtual reality. We recreate subjective experiences 

that alter the perspective onto the other by facilitating 

a new perception of the self. Our work is grounded in 

an action-research method that engages individuals and 

communities in design, development and research across 

borders. We aim to empower narratives from marginalised 

communities and are committed to understand, reproduce 

and communicate subjective experience for creating social 

bonding and empathy between individuals in order to enable 

a culture of peace. 



Reactions have been crazily beautiful, wild, challenging, 

thoughtful, intimate, intense and inspiring. We see empathy 

as a trigger for exponential change. We have worked with 

illegalised migrants, physically challenged persons, veterans, 

activists, artists, academics, world leaders and space cats 

– aiming to stimulate ambiguity, tolerance, self-understanding 

and empathy. We collaborate with researchers ranging 

from science to art departments in Brazil, USA, Germany, 

France and Mexico, including institutions such as MIT and 

the Max Planck Institute. 




The Digital Revolution enables us to exchange information 

much faster than ever before over potential global distances. 

Digitalisation has altered all aspects of human life in 

different layers of intensity depending on positionality and 

regional bonds. We are concerned about increased surveillance 

and the potential emotional isolation created by 

remote connectivity facilitated through new technologies. 

We have the opportunity to create the grammar of Virtual 

Reality as a new medium – in what kind of world do we 

want to live? Our application of technology is centred on 

connecting people emotionally, expanding identities as well 

as the imagination in order to make another world possible. 

We innovate embodied Virtual Reality and will continue 

doing so with an ethical mission to contribute to a more 

relationally smart humanity. 

53

Project: Creative Technologies in the Classroom/Barcelona 

Presenter: Arduino Verkstad AB 

Malmö, Sweden 

Interviewee: David Cuartielles 

www.bcn.verkstad.cc 

Photos: Arduino Verkstad AB 




We are looking at how education can benefit from including 

new technologies and 21 st century processes as part of the 

standard curricula. One of the main issues is how to help 

teachers to not only learn about new technologies, but to 

establish processes to have them updated year after year. 

Technology changes at a fast pace, but teachers have a 

limited amount of time to devote to their own education. 

Our project looks at new ways to interlace teacher training 

with student training. 






The creative characteristics of our project are the way we 

address the education of kids as a three-step process: maker 

labs, project building and public display. The students 

are invited to explore the more creative uses of technology 

in order to pursue projects they suggest by themselves. 

Concerning the business aspects of this project, we are 

looking at how we can offer our platform in the form of a 

subscription model, for schools to keep a constant series of 

updates on a yearly basis. We create models that teachers 

can apply at the beginning of each academic year. 

So far, the reactions from both teachers and students have 

been very positive. According to the data we have gathered 

from the people participating in our project, 95% of the 

students would recommend our project to other students; 

there have been no teachers disliking it, yet. 

54


Project: HOME BACK HOME 

Presenter: PKMN [pacman] Architectures 

Madrid, Spain 

Interviewee: Enrique Espinosa 

www.pkmn.es 

Photo: Javier de Paz García 




HOME BACK HOME cares about one of the biggest effects 

of the last decade’s crisis, related to unemployment, which 

is still a current affair and really harmful, especially in PIIGS 

countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain): the 

disemancipation of people aged 18-35, forced to turn back 

to live with their parents. In Spain, between 2007 and 2014 

more than 500,000 people suffered from this social stigma 

and more than 350,000 homes experienced a controversial 

change in terms of identity, privacy, economy and spatial 

conditions, together with a social problem related to the 

feeling of failure. We took this problem as an opportunity 

for optimism, innovation and positive change. 



We have received positive reactions from cultural institutions 

and people affected by the problem. This feedback 

was focused on the creative way we proposed for treating 

this social conflict from the field of architecture and design. 

The main challenge is to revert the sense of failure that 

disemancipated people feel, aggravated by our competitive 

society, so that people understand they are not responsible 

but rather victims of a complex global affair that – if looked 

at from a positive point of view – may have the potential 

to build a community able to share experiences, tools and 

knowledge so that it becomes part in public agendas. 




The creativity relies on connecting art, activism, social 

change, personal identities and design in a way that allows 

the development of a research and action project able to 

reveal contemporary concepts, such as domestic economies, 

shared property, new affective structures, hosting 

protocols and personal identities. The business (and social) 

impact of the project is based on the power of communities: 

500,000 people and 350,000 homes are a relevant 

social mass, connected by similar feelings and needs that 

may share knowledge and resources through a platform 

which is also open to public institutions or private investors. 

55

Project: WikiHouse 

Presenter: WikiHouse Foundation 

London, United Kingdom 

Interviewees: Harry Knight; Alastair Parvin 

www.wikihouse.cc 

Photo: Creative Commons 




Since the industrial revolution it has been assumed that the 

only way to build housing and cities at scale is for top-down 

developers (whether of the market or the state) to build 

them on our behalf: producing whole planned neighbourhoods 

and cities – rows of one-size-fits-all property assets, 

based on an imaginary “average” user. In the 21 st century, 

these centralised models are failing. Even developed economies 

find themselves in housing crisis: whether a crisis of 

deprivation, debt, supply, unaffordability, unsustainability, 

lack of democratic legitimacy or an inability to produce 

anything but socially-isolating, energy-hungry consumer 

neighbourhoods, with little economic prosperity. WikiHouse 

is a solution to this growing problem. 



WikiHouse has had a huge amount of positive responses. 

We have seen an increasing number of WikiHouse chapters 

(development/interest groups defined by their geographical 

area) start all around the world which has seen the concept 

been embraced as far as New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, 

United States, South Korea and 25 other countries. In the 

last year we have seen an increasing number of businesses 

beginning to engage with the system. We have also started 

to see an increased level of interest from companies to help 

fund the next stages of development by partnering with the 

foundation. This has been hugely encouraging and as we 

watch others embrace the idea of a much more democratised, 

affordable and environmentally friendly housing industry, 

we also improve the foundation internally. 




The power of the web is growing increasingly, so much so 

that it has very quickly become an entirely new infrastructure 

which therefore influences how we interact with each 

other. For WikiHouse, it means we can develop a platform 

which allows the future factory to be everywhere, no longer 

relying on very few companies to deliver the majority of 

housing. This infrastructure has provided us with a huge 

amount of new tools and also new possibilities that allow us 

to collaborate and share information and knowledge. New 

platforms emerging in this digital age also mean new policy 

and new standards. We believe the cultural sector needs to 

be setting open standards by showing what could be. 

56


Project: PlanEt 

Presenter: World Wilder Lab, Creativeworks London and 

the University of Arts London, Rotterdam, Netherlands and 

London, United Kingdom 

Interviewees: Kasia Molga; Erik Overmeire 

www.worldwilderlab.net 

Photo: WorldWilderLab 


innovations that are solutions to global problems. What 

problem do you address with your project? 

One of the reasons we are now facing problems of climate 

change and decreasing biodiversity is because through our 

actions, for a long time, we have been dissociating ourselves 

from what we call nature. It is in particular present in architecture 

and urban planning – building walls and boundaries 

which divide us from wilderness. Often when city dwellers talk 

about nature that nature is something outside our cities – 

which means we go to nature to relax. But in fact nature is very 

much present everywhere. There are plants, microbes, insects, 

animals and us co-habiting in our towns, just that everything 

except us – humans – is regarded as a backdrop, decoration or 

nuisance. 

World Wilder Lab’s PlanEt project aims to look at plants as 

collaborators and designers in creation of our future cities. By 

acquiring and understanding signals from plants, we hope to 

change people’s attitudes towards plants so that their role in 

our sustainability is recognised. 

What reactions have you received yet? Is the world ready 

for your solutions? 

We have exhibited and run workshops with PlanEt all over the 

world, in various settings. We have participants from various 

fields – architects, urban planners, gardeners, designers, artists 

or just plant lovers – and everybody with whom we met was 

enthusiastic and positive about using plants as a part of design 

and technology in our future cities. That is reflected in our 

collaborations with the Bartlett School of Architecture or the 

Chelsea College of Arts Interior Design Department – where 

tutors and students explore and build upon our research on 

how we can apply data from plants to better urban well-being, 

living architecture, horticulture/urban farming or to tackle local 

warming, pollutions offset, noise reduction or just residents’ 

mental health issues. 

The N.I.C.E. Award 2015 focusses on digital innovation through 

culture. How do you see the cultural sector influenced 

by digitalisation? 

Digitalisation is a very broad term. Anything can be digital now 

– from images to music to electronic devices and their applications. 

Through our work, we are not so much concerned with 

“culture”, but with “nature” – or rather how “nature” can communicate 

with “culture”. The open source/hardware concept 

now makes it easier for everyone to, for example, stream and 

monitor data from chemicals in water or air, or from microbes’ 

presence in cities’ dust. In that respect, digital technology 

becomes an agent between human culture and other living 

organisms. Digitalisation thus opens up more possibilities and 

opportunities to learn about the world around us and perhaps 

embrace other entities into what we call “culture”. 

57

The Jury 

N.I.C.E. Award 

2015 

2015: Chair of the N.I.C.E. Jury, 

Charles Landry. 

This year’s N.I.C.E. Award received 213 submissions 

and has thus surpassed all expectations. It 

was a huge challenge for us as a jury – with only 15 

allocating vacancies on the shortlist, the choice was not 

easy to make. And that is why we decided to present a 

16 th project as a “Special Guest” at the N.I.C.E. Exhibition 

and to include it in the further award procedures. 

We are still impressed by the quality of the submissions 

and would like to congratulate all nominees of the 

N.I.C.E. Award 2015. The shortlist includes only projects 

of the highest standard, dealing with the topic “Solving 

the World’s Major Challenges” from various perspectives. 

For us as a jury, this entailed particularly long and intense 

discussions and it was not easy to come to a decision. 

The applicants found so many different ways to solve the 

major challenges of our times, and we wanted to reflect 

and maintain this diversity with the award. In the end, we 

chose five winning projects that offer particularly original 

solutions for the following problem areas: social integration/anti-discrimination, 

environment/sustainability, urban 

development, financial crisis, technological change. 

The prize money of 20,000 Euros is distributed as follows: 

The first prize, and thus 8,000 Euros goes to the project 

THE MACHINE TO BE ANOTHER. It cunningly combines 

the arts and neurosciences by making it possible to see 

oneself in the body of another person and listen to his/ 

her thoughts inside their mind. Suddenly, you know how it 

feels to sit in a wheelchair, to be of the opposite sex or to 

have a different skin colour – which constitutes a cultural 

and innovative contribution to social integration and the 

fight against discrimination. 

The second prize and 5,000 Euros go to the project PlanEt. 

The technology of PlanEt was originally developed for an 

arts project. It evaluates biological data from plants – a 

hitherto undiscovered source of knowledge. This information 

is very valuable as it can show the impact of the 

environment in real time and tell us what new solutions are 

necessary and possible for the development of smart cities. 

The jury awarded the third prize and 3,000 Euros to 

WikiHouse. The project is an open source platform – 

which means it is accessible for everyone – providing 

building and construction plans for citizens, designers 

and architects alike to make it simple to plan and build 

homes according to individual needs. The project offers 

a solution for the housing crisis of the 21 st century, which 

serves as an example for the failure of the construction 

industry’s undemocratic and centralised system. 

The fourth prize was awarded to two projects with 2,000 

Euros each: 

HOME BACK HOME from Spain is a solution for social 

problems arising from the financial crisis in the 

countries of Southern Europe: many young and usually 

highly trained and qualified people do not find work 

and cannot earn their living. Most of them are forced to 

move back to their parents and live on just a few square 

metres, which gives them a feeling of social failure. This 

is where HOME BACK HOME comes into play: not only 

does it help to adequately transform old bedrooms, but 

it also aims at giving these young people a feeling of 

success and strengthening their confidence. 

Creative Technologies in the Classroom from Sweden 

designed tools and methods to incorporate and develop 

own emerging technologies in the classroom. The 

technological progress of our times is rapidly advancing, 

and most of us are using the latest technologies without 

really knowing how they work. That is why this project 

provides school children with a deeper understanding 

of technology and keeps teachers informed about the 

current state of developments. This helps them use new 

didactic methods in the classroom. 

Text: Charles Landry, 

Chair of the N.I.C.E. Jury 2015 

“The focus of the 

N.I.C.E. Award is to 

honour digital, cultural 

solutions to the 

challenges of this world 

and to present best 

practice examples from 

throughout Europe.“ 


58

N.I.C.E. N.I.C.E. AWARD NETWORK 2015 / JURY 

2015: 

Deputy chair of the 

N.I.C.E. Jury, 

Arantxa Mendiharat. 

2015: Jury member Prof Kurt Mehnert. 

59

HELIX Studio from London combines design expertise with 

the health sector. With the help of a mobile pop-up studio, 

designers and hospital staff are brought together to jointly 

look for solutions to the complex problems of the sector, 

such as in palliative medicine. 

In Place of War from Manchester supports artists and 

creative enterprises in areas of war and crisis. To this end, 

they developed a special coaching method to help people 

build up their own businesses and networks to create social 

change through their creativity. 

2015: Bisera Savoska representing the 

project Smarter Than You Think. 

Presenting an award always means to select a winner – 

but due to the high quality of the submissions, we also 

wanted to honour the following projects, which made it 

on the shortlist: 

1D Touch from Lyon is a new streaming platform for independent 

creative professionals, who have difficulties in establishing 

themselves next to popular big players. 1D Touch 

is a new, fair business model, which does not focus on mass 

markets, but on the independent scene. 1D Touch thus 

makes an important contribution to maintaining creative 

diversity in the cultural scene. 

Climate for Culture from Brussels aims to assess the risks 

climate change poses on historical buildings. To this end, 

the project developed a risk assessment tool to take preventive 

action against the consequences of climate change. 

This does not only lead to economic savings, but it also 

helps to preserve our cultural heritage. 

Data Ethical Culture Observatory from Paris is an important 

initiative to develop digital human rights and ethics. In 

times of digital change, we reveal more and more personal 

data, and the risk of manipulation and identity theft 

is increasing. The project gives an important stimulus to 

finding an answer to one of the most important questions 

of today’s digital world – the question of ethics in the digital 

age. 

Deaf Magazine from Dusseldorf was put on the shortlist as 

a “Special Guest” due to its combination of digital and analogue 

media and its contribution to social inclusion. Deaf 

Magazine is a lifestyle magazine about the German deaf 

culture. It combines printed content with augmented reality 

segments, making it easier for hearing-impaired readers to 

understand written texts and content, as they communicate 

in a completely different sign system. 

Smart Citizen from Barcelona aims at empowering citizens 

by providing open source kits to enable them to measure 

the conditions of their urban environment, such as noise 

pollution, for example. In this way, citizens learn to strengthen 

their influence, leading to a new philosophy: cities are 

no longer planned top-down but with the involvement of 

their citizens. 

Smarter Than You Think from Brussels is a project of very 

high social value. It raises awareness for dyslexia by having 

people read a text designed to make them feel dyslexic, 

showing them that a reading and writing disability has 

nothing to do with a lack of intelligence. A truly successful 

contribution to social inclusion. 

ROOM IN A BOX from Berlin is a start-up company that 

produces fully recyclable furniture made of cardboard. Due 

to the uncertain situation on the labour market, frequent 

job changes and moving to different cities has become the 

norm. ROOM IN A BOX is the modern nomad’s companion, 

saves high transport costs and offers a sustainable lifestyle 

to an increasingly mobile generation worldwide. 

Waves of Energy/Ardora from Donostia/San Sebastián is an 

approach to increase the acceptance of cultural projects 

among citizens. With the innovative idea of an installation, 

where citizens become part of a jury deciding on the local 

distribution of financial subsidies, the project allows for 

more citizen participation and more transparency during 

decision-making processes. Cultural programmes are 

therefore not only made for but also by citizens. 

2015: Jury meeting 

Fontus and Airo from Vienna developed two bottles capable 

of filling themselves with drinking water by capturing and 

condensing moisture from the air. Water is one of the most 

important resources of life on our planet, and it is already a 

scarce commodity leading to war and conflict. The project 

offers a very innovative solution as it can be used worldwide 

thanks to its do-it-yourself approach – especially in poor 

areas of conflict. 

60

The N.I.C.E. Winners 

and the award 

ceremony 2015 

“We were truly delighted with the quality and 

diversity of the projects that made it on the 

shortlist,” explains Charles Landry on behalf of the entire 

jury and right at the beginning of the award ceremony. 

“But also with the will and passion that were invested in 

these complex topics.” 

2015: N.I.C.E. Award ceremony with Prof Dieter Gorny 

and Minister Garrelt Duin (centre). 

1 st 61 

THE MACHINE TO BE ANOTHER from Brazil 

won the first prize worth 8,000 Euros. 

Here, the arts and neurosciences are combined to enable a new 

way of embodiment of another person’s life story in a “unique and 

intelligent way,” as Charles Landry puts it. 

At the end of the event, the shortlisted projects are also delighted 

with their participation and stay in Essen. Kristof Retezár 

from Fontus and Airo from Austria says: “With the nomination 

for the N.I.C.E. Award, my project earned additional credibility 

and attention in relevant media and professional networks. The 

exhibition and the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr were a truly rewarding 

experience for me – not only in a professional sense, but also in a 

broader context of the Cultural and Creative Industries in Europe. I 

am especially grateful for getting to know other creative start-up 

businesses from the rest of the world, which – like myself – take 

the bumpy road to see their dreams fulfilled one day and be able 

to earn a living from it. Incidentally, I had a great time in Essen!”

2 nd 3 rd 

PlanEt from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands 

came in second place and was awarded with 5,000 Euros. 

“This project seems odd at first sight as it gives plants ‘a 

say’,” admits Charles Landry. It evaluates biological data 

from plants, thus enabling completely new approaches 

to urban development and the preservation of resources. 

“The data from the plants have a direct impact on smart 

city models,” argues the jury. And the winners Kasia 

Molga and Erik Overmeire from World Wilder Lab find 

the right words after the event: “We have always – even 

before we won the award – appreciated the recognition 

of such ambitious approaches in the Cultural and Creative 

Industries, because people all too often rely on approaches 

that are supposedly safe and tested. We now see 

our work and its purpose confirmed and are motivated 

to continue with our examinations, and to improve our 

product design and the project as a whole.” 

2015: The N.I.C.E. Award was awarded by Garrelt Duin, 

Minister of Economic Affairs, Energy and Industry of 

the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. 

2015: The Winners were 

announced by Charles Landry. 

WikiHouse from the United Kingdom 

won the third prize worth 3,000 Euros for its open source 

platform for do-it-yourself-building and construction 

plans. Arantxa Mendiharat described this innovative idea 

as essential for the prize, as this project uses a decentralised 

approach to make data available that had only been 

accessible to specialists so far: architecture becomes a 

do-it-yourself-model to fight housing shortage. 

4 th 

HOME BACK HOME from Spain and 

Creative Technologies in the Classroom (CTC) 

from Sweden 

These two projects share the fourth prize and were 

awarded with 2,000 Euros each. The jury chose CTC 

because of its exemplary approach to encourage pupils 

and teachers alike to use the Internet as the main tool 

for gathering information as well as documenting their 

own projects. Jury member Arantxa Mendiharat explains 

that most educational institutions were already using 

modern technologies – or they would reject them without 

knowing what is actually possible. This project, however, 

introduces children to basic concepts of programming, 

electronics and mechanics at an early stage. But it’s not 

just children, says Charles Landry: “Teachers are also 

experiencing a much more balanced and informative use 

of new technologies.” Barbara Abel points out that the 

project HOME BACK HOME turns a social problem into a 

personal opportunity, thus freeing those involved from 

all stigmas, conveying a feeling of success and strengthening 

their confidence. 

62 

2015: The N.I.C.E. Award 

ceremony was opened by 

Prof Dieter Gorny.

Imprint 

PUBLISHER 

european centre for creative economy 

ecce GmbH 

Emil-Moog-Platz 7 

D-44137 Dortmund 

+ 49 (0) 231 222 275 00 

www.e-c-c-e.com 

FUNDED BY 

Ministry for Family, Children, Youth, Culture 

and Sport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia 

PARTNER 

TEAM 

Bernd Fesel 

Inna Goudz 

Annika Schmermbeck 

www.nice-europe.eu 

N.I.C.E@e-c-c-e.com 

N.I.C.E. AWARD & EXHIBITION FUNDED BY 

TEXT 

Christian Caravante 

Bernd Fesel 

Jens Kobler 

Charles Landry 

TRANSLATION 

Nadine Hegmanns 

www.nadinehegmanns.com 

Übersetzungsbüro Nastula 

www.uebersetzungsbuero-nastula.de 

EDITING 

Sandra Czerwonka 

DESIGN 

NEU – Designbüro 

www.neu-designbuero.de 

SZENOGRAPHY N.I.C.E. EXHIBITION 

Clemens Müller 

www.clemensmueller.com 

PHOTO CREDITS 

Christian Caravante (Pages 6, 7, 22) 

I HATE FLASH (Cover, Pages 18, 19, 39) 

Clemens Müller (Pages 34, 35, 36, 37, U4) 

Vladimir Wegener (Page 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 

15, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 

34, 35, 59, 60, 61, 62) 

63

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