<< Background >>Artistic freedom and expression are closely linked to the social and economic conditions of cultural professionals and institutions. An analysis of labour market data for culture and arts professionals provides an insight into the nature of the employment and livelihood which the sector provides. In other words, while the number of cultural professionals and artists is growing steadily, their employment conditions become more and more unstable. This is evident by, the frequent incidence of short-term contracts, part-time jobs, seasonal employment and two or even more parallel jobs for people with university diplomas. Meanwhile, In Europe, the cultural and creative sectors are characterised by self-employment, small- and micro-enterprises whose value creation is mainly based on intangible assets, such as original ideas, knowhow and creativity, and cultural and linguistic diversity. At the same time, the mobility of artists and cultural and creative professionals, the circulation and translation of European content, training and talent development, fair pay and working conditions, access to finance and cross-border cooperation are issues of specific interest for research and exchange at European level. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has made all this conditions worse for cultural and creative professionals, indicating that now it is the time to address the shortcomings in their skills and equip them with tools which will help them to have a stronger professional backbone.<< Objectives >>The project’s main objective is to improve the employability skills and work opportunities for Culture and Creative Young Professionals (CCYPs) working and/or living in rural areas and to reduce the existing gap between the educational world and labour market by diversification of career paths and skills recognition. Essentially with this improvement CCYPs will have the opportunity to have increased access to national and EU funding programmes which will enable them to start their own company, or share their artistic know-how in projects for fostering arts and culture in education or even using art and culture as a means to achieve the objectives of several EU programmes, for example the AMIF or CERV programmes.In addition, the project aims to provide the CCYPs with the opportunity to exchange best-practises and know-how and at the same time connect with business partners and cultural and artistic institutions on a national or European level.<< Implementation >>In order to achieve the project’s objective, the consortium will create Business Academies by designing and delivering training programmes for CCYPs. Essentially, the approach of the project will be on the one hand to identify skill needs for CCYPs who live in rural areas through surveys, desk research and discussions in focus groups emphasising on digital, leadership and management skills gaps and needs. These results of the activity to identify these skills will be integrated into the design of an innovative training programme, which will include open e-learning and work-based learning methods.Moreover, as part of the project’s activities, a Prototype Hub and a Guidebook, containing guidelines on how to set up a Hub will be created. The aim of the Hubs will be to provide to CCYPs with all the necessary information in relation to EU and national funding opportunities and also inform them about any possible partnering opportunities. The Hubs will also be able to host the Business Academies which offer the training programme.The partners will also create an e-community platform and an elearning tool, where all training material will be available. The elearning platform will form part of the whole training course development, a meaningful learning tool will be developed to create e-learning courses and e-learning contents, collecting the learning material used for the project.The project partners will finally engage themselves in communication and dissemination activities so that the project results can reach the project’s target groups and the general public.<< Results >>The expected results during the life of the project are the following:- Employability challenges faced by the CCYPs in each one of the participating countries and consolidated report with the state of the art.- Analysis of the educational and training needs of CCYPs living and/or working in rural areas in each country and creation of a consolidated report. - Creation of a Prototype cultural Hub and the creation of a Guidebook for setting up a Hub.- Creation of Business and Innovation Academies by designing and delivering an innovative training programme for CCYPs. The content of the training programme will correspond to their needs in the respective countries.- Creation of an e-learning platform, as part of the whole training course. The platform will be a meaningful learning tool developed in such a way to create e-learning courses and e-learning contents, collecting the learning material used for the project.Furthermore, the project will include all the necessary results in order to be coherent and successfully implemented:- A concrete management plan which will describe all the necessary steps and procedures for the smooth implementation of the project (structure, tasks per partner and responsibilities, project milestones, communication arrangements and reporting);- A quality assurance strategy covering the overall course of the project, to make sure all activities are undertaken in an effective way, leading to the desired results based on the quality standards agreed. ;- An interim and a final evaluation report, with an overview of the qualitative and quantitative objectives reached and what course of action is expected by the partners;- A dissemination strategy, with detailed description of the dissemination tools and activities necessary to reach the target groups and a final dissemination activities report at the end of the project;- Project Website and logo;- Creation of informative printed material;- Newsletters developed and disseminated after important project milestones;- Feedback questionnaires from members of the target group who will be involved in the local events;- Database of stakeholders who would be interested in the project and are in contact with the main target group.