Creative with Others

Pilot Runner: CORE Kollektiv (Germany)

This Open Pilot, hosted by CORE Kollektiv in Berlin, Germany, is titled “Creative with Others: Unveiling the power of working in collective and reflective ways across disciplines and borders.” The pilot supports creative migrants and internationally oriented creative professionals to strengthen collective ways of working, communicate the value of their creative practice, and connect their individual work to wider social, cultural, and ecological contexts.

The pilot creates an inclusive and practice-based learning environment where participants can explore how creative work becomes stronger through collaboration, reflection, storytelling, digital tools, and shared action. It is also intended to help CORE Kollektiv develop a replicable programme model for a VET-oriented organisation supporting creative ecosystems in transition.

Aims of the pilot

The pilot aims to raise awareness about new ways of working collectively, especially in relation to long-term planning and action together. It also seeks to strengthen participants’ digital confidence, improve storytelling and communication techniques, support financial strategising for independent and collective practice, and foster self-awareness, empathy, and intercultural collaboration.

The CYANOTYPES Framework is used as a supporting structure to professionalise the programme, align it with a European continuing education framework, benchmark it against other pilots, connect with European partners, and support quality assurance. The pilot is grounded in the idea that individual creative practice can be expanded through collaborative approaches, reflective work, and narratives that communicate value.
The main CYANOTYPES competences identified are.

A broad set of CYANOTYPES competences will be explored, including:
A1 – Creative Confidence
A2 – Collaboration Across Creative Disciplines
A2 – Collaboration Across Creative Disciplines
A5 – Collective Action
B4 – Narrative Design
C4 – Creatively Using Digital Technology
C5 – Digital Content Co-Creation
D1 – Financial and Economic Literacy
D2 – Planning and Management
D4 – Opportunity Management
E5 – Actionable Futures

The pilot also places strong emphasis on the overlaps between competence areas. CORE Kollektiv frames the main learning as happening between value-creating, collective, regenerative, and digital dimensions, where participants define the value of the collective, connect narrative with digital practice, and tackle regenerative aspects together.

Activities undertaken

The pilot is designed as an eight-week programme, with two-hour sessions once per week, creating a total of 16 learning hours. It is framed as lifelong learning and creative migrant professional development, with an EQF level 5 orientation and a triple-loop learning pathway moving from Self → World → Frame → Explore → Engage.

The target group is primarily creative migrants, including working or studying migrants with language skills as well as migrants in need who are seeking refuge in Germany and pathways into the German or European creative labour market. The programme is delivered in English, with additional explanations in German and consultations in Russian or Ukrainian where needed.

Activities include facilitator-led seminars, individual and group exercises, case study analysis, discussions, journal entries, peer review, presentations, pitches, and the production of proposals and digital outputs. The programme is planned first as an in-person offer in Berlin, with the possibility of a later online version in collaboration with partners in Berlin and Europe.

Outcomes and early learning

The pilot aims to support 12 participants per cycle, including up to 5 migrants in need, through successful completion of the programme. Expected outcomes include strengthened participant competences, clearer creative strategies, mapped opportunities, stronger collective connections, and up to five digital maps that can guide new ways of working.

The programme also aims to produce documentation that can be shared through the CORE Kollektiv website, presented publicly at relevant events, and used as a foundation for a continuous programme within CORE Kollektiv’s portfolio. The pilot may become one of the milestones toward CORE Kollektiv’s broader vision of a school “run by creatives.”

The programme shows a clear progression from personal narrative and values, through collaboration and digital co-creation, toward planning, funding, public presentation, and future pathways. This gives the pilot a strong action orientation: participants are not only reflecting on creative practice, but also producing artefacts, plans, pitches, and collective pathways.

Adding value

The pilot is valuable because it connects creative migrant integration, collective practice, and European competence-based learning in a concrete Berlin context. Its strength lies in treating collaboration not as a soft add-on, but as a practical route to visibility, opportunity, shared value, and regenerative action. It also surfaces an important learning challenge: eight weeks can open a strong pathway, but longer-term access to the collective, peer exchange, and ecosystem connections will be needed for deeper transformation.

Possible policy recommendations

This pilot suggests that policy makers, funders, and cultural education leaders should support community-based lifelong learning programmes for creative migrants, especially where these programmes combine competence development, peer networks, digital production, and access to local creative ecosystems. The CORE Kollektiv pilot shows that creative migrant support should not be limited to employability language; it can also recognise creative professionals as knowledge holders, collaborators, and future contributors to cultural innovation.
Policy support could focus on funding small creative collectives as legitimate VET and lifelong learning actors, supporting multilingual and intercultural training formats, recognising micro-credential pathways for transversal creative competences, and strengthening links between local creative hubs, European networks, and migrant-led initiatives. This would help cities such as Berlin move beyond fragmented support offers toward more inclusive creative ecosystems where migrant creative practice can become visible, connected, and collectively sustainable.

Website: https://core-kollektiv.org