Verification
of skills and competencies
Rod
Fisher, International Intelligence on Culture,
London
Based on
evidence gathered by the CUPORE surveys of training
institutions and, in the main, younger professionals, the
second stage of the VANIA project sought to verify which
competencies and skills were most relevant for managing
European cultural co-operation projects by ascertaining the
views of practitioners with extensive experience in
transnational initiatives. This phase, undertaken by
International Intelligence on Culture, involved a mix of
face-to-face interviews, questionnaires and desk research
into experience in other non-cultural sectors.
A literature review indicated that the acquisition of
management principles alone is insufficient for managing
cultural projects; a range of skills, competencies and
attributes is needed. But are such skills unique to
the sector? Not necessarily. Evidence suggests
that managing projects in the cultural sector has certain
characteristics that are common to projects in the sphere
of business, eg teamworking and financial/budgetary
control. Moreover, running transnational projects,
whether in culture or commerce, has some
common features which distinguish them from managing
domestic projects.
Broadly, the results of the survey of experienced
practitioners confirmed the importance of most of the
skills and competencies identified by their younger
counterparts. However, there are some differences in
emphasis that will be explained.
An attempt has been made to cluster and prioritise key
skills, competencies and personal attributes by
applying a definitional approach put forward by the
European Commission, that distinguishes between knowledge
(cognitive compencies), skills (functional competencies)
and broader attributes (personal and ethical).
Hitherto, many practitioners acquired competencies and
skills to manage transnational cultural co-operation
projects on the job. There is little doubt that more
could be done at academic level to prepare operators for
such tasks, providing the training involves a combination
of theory and practice. The presentation of this part of
the study will conclude with some observations about this
and the need for flexibility in any European certification
framework that might be introduced.
Report
Verification of skills and
competencies