In the first half 2025, Professors Erik Jones and Mafalda Dâmaso, Director and Part-Time Professor of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, respectively, initiated their coordination as work package leaders for projects ANIMA MUNDI (IP, Discoverability and Partnerships: Reviving the International Promotion of European Values through European Animation Industry Ecosystem) and StreamSCAPES (Driving sustainable climate transition of Video-on-Demand platforms at a time of transformation), two consortia co-led by the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and awarded through Horizon Europe.
Recognising the animation sector as a powerful but underutilised force within the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI), ANIMA MUNDI will generate new data and assess critical gaps in terms of intellectual property, discoverability, and international partnerships within the European Animation Industry Ecosystem.
As for StreamSCAPES, its focus on Video-on-Demand (VoD) platforms acknowledges them as central nodes within contemporary audiovisual and cultural ecosystems. The project will reimagine and test the contribution of VoD to building more sustainable production, consumption, and decision-making systems in the CCI and beyond.
“The projects will identify untapped policy pathways to bolster the socioeconomic, environmental and geopolitical potential of the European Cultural and Creative Industries as a sector that upholds cultural diversity, human-centric creation and trust-based international relations in the European continent and beyond,” explains Dâmaso.
Through a mix of data gathering, pilot initiatives, policy development, and outreach activities, the projects aim to contribute to accelerating the green transition, as well as exploring options for scaling the impact of the EU’s commitment to international cultural relations.
“The creative and cultural industries are a vital part of Europe’s economy and European identity. They are also essential to the promotion of Europe abroad," highlights Jones. "These projects shed important light on how to adapt European creative and cultural industries to recent changes in geopolitics, technology, and environmental imperatives. We are proud to play a part in this crucial research and look forward to learning more about how this study of creative and cultural industries can enrich our wider research agenda."
The projects will be coordinated by the University of Liège and, within the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, will be hosted at the European Governance and Politics Programme.
Erik Jones is the Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. Among other publications, Professor Jones has authored The Politics of Economic and Monetary Union (2002), Economic Adjustment and Political Transformation in Small States (2008), Weary Policeman: American Power in an Age of Austerity (2012, with Dana H. Allin), and The Year the European Crisis Ended (2014).
Mafalda Dâmaso is a Part-time Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. She is editor of The European Union as a Global Cultural Power (2025), co-editor of Regenerative Cultural Policy, a Special Issue of the International Journal of Cultural Policy (2025), and a member of the European Expert Network on Culture.