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This project examines experimental forms of collaboration between actors in a sector of the creative economy, namely product design, and other economic actors like providers, consumers or retailers of goods and services. The intention is to discover whether these interactions represent newness in the form of social innovation, and if so, which material and ideational features characterize them as new. From this analysis it will then be possible to clarify the potential such collaboration represents for processes of societal transformation in systems of work and production on a wider scale.

Creativity is currently viewed as the new key resource of urban development. This is evidenced by a multitude of concepts, such as creative cities, the creative economy, and creative class, which are restructuring the current research discourse in relation to urban development and are being readily adopted by urban policy throughout the world. Creativity is, however, a volatile resource which is linked to individuals and groups. Thus the question arises for cities as to how they can manage these resources, i.e. store creativity in their structures or develop structures, within which creativity can unfold.

Our research project aims at presenting two complementary forms of progress in home care regimes in three European countries at local level: social learning (informal arrangement), and (institutional) innovation. Following the analysis of the national care framework for the aged and disabled, local case studies in Switzerland, Germany and Scotland will be selected. Case studies will both focus on aged people in need of rather “regular” care services or on complex cases – people suffering from dementia, hard to reach population requiring a wider variety of services and more intensive care provision.