In a recent presentation Josef Konwitz has pointed to the vital importance of innovation as one of the few levers currently available to governments as they seek to pull their economies out of recession (Konwitz, 2010).  He argues that the traditional factors of growth which have served the western world well from the end of the second world war have lost their potency, restricted by the very crisis from which, in earlier times, they would have fostered economic recovery.  Konvitz suggests that probably the least constrained of these factors is innovation. In his view, the burden of growth falls mainly on creativity: the ability to generate and use new knowledge and find new ways of doing things.  Innovation is important for business, governments and people, and attention is turning to strategies for encouraging innovation across the world (see, for example, OECD 2010).

Learning through cultural activities is a strategic area which ought to receive broader attention from the European Union, national governments and regional leadership.