Cluj-Napoca
Romania
Future of Work
The UIA project Cluj Future of Work (CFW) was conceived to create a socially resilient working ecosystem for current and future jobs in the city, and imagine a technologically-enriched future that is safe, ethical, inclusive and sustainable. The project set out to tackle the shortcomings of the local economy, which mainly consists of low value-added activities so is vulnerable to emerging technologies and automation.
Despite being a magnet city, attracting new residents from across the country, Cluj-Napoca’s local economy was not prepared for technological change. While cultural and creative industries (CCI) represent the most powerful element of vitality for Cluj, there is a strong mismatch between their core competencies and local jobs. Every year, about 2000 students graduate from a CCI-related discipline, with only 7% going on to work in their core field of expertise. In addition, there is a growing social divide, with over 2500 people living in informal settlements and around 20% of employees living on subsistence wages.
CFW set out to re-imagine work based on social values and technological potential, with a number of actions: 1) Promote smart specialisation and make creative industries and related knowledge-based services more competitive; 2) Enable the transition to work 4.0 by providing training and skill development for work cycles under risk of automation; and 3) Improve the spatial conditions of the local economy by regenerating the CREIC area.
The project piloted a transdisciplinary mix including Cultural and Creative Industries and Knowledge Intensive Business Services at city level. Ideas from cultural industries were incubated with business and tech know-how, to create higher-value jobs and explore prototypes for local value chains that support the transition to work 4.0. CFW also helped mix skills from sectors threatened by technological unemployment with those from the transdisciplinary pilot, while enabling underprivileged communities excluded from the labour market to use their collective knowledge.
Cluj Future of Work was organised as a three-year fast prototyping process, building on the innovation methodology advanced by Cluj Cultural Centre, an umbrella organisation representing 100 local actors and a spin-off of the alliance formed for the European Capital of Culture. Both Cluj-Napoca Municipality and the other consortium members engaged in a novel way of working, based on repeated cycles of learning from experimental actions. This was the first time Cluj-Napoca Municipality had implemented a co-management practice.
The partnership’s diversity encouraged cross-sectoral integration, with IT and cultural clusters working alongside university and social and cultural NGOs. In this way, poverty reduction actions were combined with measures for supporting entrepreneurship and creativity to bridge the gap between jobs and skills.
Key elements of CFW that can be replicated or upscaled include: 1) New labs connecting CCI with technological innovation; 2) Tailor-made learning programmes to develop necessary skills for the future of work; 3) Capacity building programmes in the form of new organisational models and access to international markets; 4) Applied research on supporting the resilience of the local socio-economic ecosystem.
The UIA project Cluj Future of Work (CFW) was conceived to create a socially resilient working ecosystem for current and future jobs in the city, and imagine a technologically-enriched future that is safe, ethical, inclusive and sustainable. The project set out to tackle the shortcomings of the local economy, which mainly consists of low value-added activities so is vulnerable to emerging technologies and automation.
Despite being a magnet city, attracting new residents from across the country, Cluj-Napoca’s local economy was not prepared for technological change. While cultural and creative industries (CCI) represent the most powerful element of vitality for Cluj, there is a strong mismatch between their core competencies and local jobs. Every year, about 2000 students graduate from a CCI-related discipline, with only 7% going on to work in their core field of expertise. In addition, there is a growing social divide, with over 2500 people living in informal settlements and around 20% of employees living on subsistence wages.
CFW set out to re-imagine work based on social values and technological potential, with a number of actions: 1) Promote smart specialisation and make creative industries and related knowledge-based services more competitive; 2) Enable the transition to work 4.0 by providing training and skill development for work cycles under risk of automation; and 3) Improve the spatial conditions of the local economy by regenerating the CREIC area.
The project piloted a transdisciplinary mix including Cultural and Creative Industries and Knowledge Intensive Business Services at city level. Ideas from cultural industries were incubated with business and tech know-how, to create higher-value jobs and explore prototypes for local value chains that support the transition to work 4.0. CFW also helped mix skills from sectors threatened by technological unemployment with those from the transdisciplinary pilot, while enabling underprivileged communities excluded from the labour market to use their collective knowledge.
Cluj Future of Work was organised as a three-year fast prototyping process, building on the innovation methodology advanced by Cluj Cultural Centre, an umbrella organisation representing 100 local actors and a spin-off of the alliance formed for the European Capital of Culture. Both Cluj-Napoca Municipality and the other consortium members engaged in a novel way of working, based on repeated cycles of learning from experimental actions. This was the first time Cluj-Napoca Municipality had implemented a co-management practice.
The partnership’s diversity encouraged cross-sectoral integration, with IT and cultural clusters working alongside university and social and cultural NGOs. In this way, poverty reduction actions were combined with measures for supporting entrepreneurship and creativity to bridge the gap between jobs and skills.
Key elements of CFW that can be replicated or upscaled include: 1) New labs connecting CCI with technological innovation; 2) Tailor-made learning programmes to develop necessary skills for the future of work; 3) Capacity building programmes in the form of new organisational models and access to international markets; 4) Applied research on supporting the resilience of the local socio-economic ecosystem.
About this resource
The Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) is a European Union initiative that provided funding to urban areas across Europe to test new and unproven solutions to urban challenges. The initiative had a total ERDF budget of €372 million for 2014-2020.
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