Minister for Education and Professional Training, Mady Delvaux-Stehres, and Secretary of State for Culture, Higher Education and Research, Octavie Modert, were at the launch of the Luxembourg programme on Thursday 5 February. They were joined by Marco Walentiny, the president of Luxinnovation which is the third institution that forms the organising committee of the Luxembourg project within the European context. The broad official aim of the year is to raise awareness of the importance of creativity and innovation for personal, social and economic development.

It will achieve this by disseminating good practices, stimulating education and research, and promoting policy debate and development. The local programme is aimed at all citizens under the simple slogan “Imagine, Create. Innovate.” It includes focus on creativity as part of personal development and innovation as a motor for economic development. But much of the emphasis will be on encouraging youngsters to take a fresh look at creativity and innovation and to open up their minds to the possibility that these fields offer a variety of career opportunities, or can even lead to them becoming entrepreneurs.

“In Luxembourg we have noticed that young professional creative talent is becoming more and more rare. Too many young people want to work for the state or the communes,” says Elisabeth Reisen from the Ministry of Education. “We want to promote creativity both to develop young entrepreneurs but also to encourage workers to be more innovative. There needs to be a change of mentality.” To this end the ministry’s part of the programme will be targeting not just students but also teachers – training programmes in creativity will be expanded and enriched during 2009.

The reform of the education law, with its new methods of teaching and evaluation already seen in pilot projects such as the Néi Lycée, will play an important role in achieving this goal. “We want to encourage the worlds of education, economy and business to work more closely together,” says Reisen. The programme will include conferences and workshops  as well as the Een Dag am Betrieb project that allows teachers to spend a day in a business environment or even visit different companies over a one-week period.

Culture will also play an important role in the programme. “Culture is by definition a domain that is a centre of excellence for creativity,” says Barbara Zeches, attaché at the Ministry of Culture. “What interests us for the European Year is to promote awareness of creative potential. By establishing workshops for children we hope to attract youngsters and families who might not normally have access to culture.” This will cross over into the other domains such as holding some of the teacher training programmes in a cultural context - with the Orchestra Philharmonique de Luxembourg, for example. A “Semaine de la créativité” at this year’s Foire de Printemps (from 9 to 17 May) will also promote the programme to a wider audience via an inter-active “espace Créativité et Innovation”.

Luxinnovation will address the business world and public research institutions. “We will hold workshops in design, working with the communes in primary schools to raise awareness of the importance of design,” explains Françoise Bisteur, head of the European Year project at Luxinnovation. “The programme is still being developed and we have launched an appeal for projects that want to apply for the Année Européenne de la créativité et de l’innovation label.” On a business level, Luxinnovation will also hold conferences that address concerns of young entrepreneurs such as intellectual property rights.

More information at: www.creativite-innovation.lu