PROJECT DESCRIPTION

THRIVE – Talent Harvest: Rural Intangible Heritage and Value Empowerment
The project will contribute to make rural areas more attractive for talent, creating new opportunities to attract innovative businesses, providing access to high-quality jobs, promoting new and improved skills, and harness the benefits flowing from the diversification of their economic activities through the preservation and promotion of intangible cultural heritage. In fact, Culture and cultural heritage including CCIs, are vital assets for regional competitiveness and social cohesion, while constituting key elements of the identity of cities and regions.
Furthermore, cultural participation has a significant impact on residents’ quality of life, contributing to their well-being and theirsense of belonging. Despite the fact that culture and cultural
heritage are considered an important element in strategies for urban and regional development, their potential is not always fully tapped: one of the reasons lies in the persistence of a traditional approach where investments in those sectors focus mainly on the support to cultural production or on physical interventions in heritage sites or buildings. While those investments are crucial to support the development of cultural values and/or artistic expressions, and to pass the precious tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Europe to future generations, it is fundamental to promote innovative approaches, targeting the sustainability of the actions and maximising the social and economic benefits on the territories and communities. The project's main objective is to cultivate and retain talents in rural areas through culture and creativity. Through a joint path of systematization and transfer of expertise from different European organizations, the project will enable, through several structured and synergistic actions,
to facilitate the cultivation and retention of talents through the preservation, recovery and enhancement of intangible cultural heritage, fostering the empowerment and resilience of rural communities and bridging territorial imbalances (urban-rural divide). The actions will be undertaken in a pilot territory, the province of Bergamo, through the enhancement and complementarity of different European skills and expertise. The model will be made replicable for implementation in other European countries, and specific capitalization actions will encourage the adoption of this model
in territories with similar characteristics. The project is divided into the main following work packages:
1. Project management
2. State of the art and talents engagement: this phase aims to create a public private territorial ecosystem that is open and attractive to talent. This wp includes activities of mapping and exchange of best practices, scouting of potential talents and their skills, mapping of intangible heritage at risk of extinction and abandonment
3. Talents empowerment: this step aims to unlock the potential of rural communities through matching the aspirations and skills of talents with labor market opportunities (one of the backbone of the EU Year of Skills), particularly by stimulating and facilitating the creation of new socially oriented business ideas in the cultural and creative sector (filling the gap of lack of knowledge and know-how on the side of citizens and civil society in rural areas regarding social economy solutions to concrete local challenges), responding to the challenges of the region expressed by citizens with a focus on cultural welfare, as well as through the transfer of skills through a dual approach: from oldgenerations to new generations, for the legacy of intangible capital, and among European good practices that have already tested solutions aimed at solving the challenges identified
4. Talent friendly territorial branding: this phase aims to develop an attractive and hospitable territory-destination for talents. This will be achieved through a territorial marketing plan and the organization of events and initiatives at local and European level with the aim of starting a sustainable path over time and in continuous growth and development, stimulating other territories to do the same (encouraging the transfer and capitalization of what has been achieved in territories with similar characteristics). Particular attention will be given to the creation of a digital platform: - to collect and promote intangible heritage through a participatory planning - to collect data (from both the public and the private sector and citizens) in order to design new services/as open innovation environment as to make the residents' lives easier and more sustainable
5. Communication and dissemination

ORGANISATION DESCRIPTION

The Province of Bergamo (PROVBG) is a supra-local public body located in northern Italy and it includes 243 municipalities. As an intermediate body between the Region and the municipalities,
PROVBG has fundamental and delegated functions and is responsible for several sectors including environment, land management, culture, tourism, sports, social policies, equal opportunities, territorial development, education and vocational training.
PROVBG EU Office is active since 2015 and its part of the Territorial Development Department, whose activities are mainly oriented towards the promotion and coordination of innovative and/or complex projects which envisage multi-level governance. EU Office works in synergy with Culture Unit, which provides support and assistance to associations and municipalities for the implementation of cultural projects and activities. The Province has indeed mainly the following functions (stated in Regional
Law 25/2016):
•Implementing interventions for the development, strengthening and enhancement of museums and museum collections, as well as encouraging the creation of local museum networks and systems;
•Promote cultural interventions for initiatives of local interest for educational and cultural promotion;
•Promote and enhance provincial cultural and artistic heritage;
•Organize cultural events, exhibitions, presentations and meetings.
In recent years, PROVBG has participated in several projects
(mainly regional or national) related to the enhancement of the territory's tangible and intangible cultural heritage as an engine of socio-economic development.