All over Europe, cities face the challenge of using cultural resources to re-position their city in a culturally and economically more diversified space. The growing importance of cultural resources for economic and community development creates new opportunities and challenges for local cultural planning and management. In order to fully exploit the innovative and supportive role of culture in European urban development, it will be necessary to develop a new, socially and culturally sensitive professionalism, able to cross the boundaries between arts, design, urban and spatial planning, public policy and the market, artistic creativity and cultural management.
The M.A. European Urban Cultures (Polis) is a full time, postgraduate degree jointly developed by four European universities; the Tilburg University (Netherlands), the Flemish Free University of Brussels (Belgium), Estonian Academy of Arts (Tallinn, Estonia) and the Manchester Metropolitan University (UK). Polis offers a specialist programme aimed at graduate students from Europe and elsewhere with undergraduate degrees in subject areas such as the social sciences; cultural and leisure studies; art, design and architecture; urban theory and planning; cultural marketing and management. The course is also targeted at professionals and administrators eager for the latest experiences, ideas and insights in urban cultural policy. The minimum requirements for entry are related undergraduate diploma or degree, together with good proficiency in English. The main topics include:
- European cultural policies
- popular cultures
- theory and practice of urbanism
- urban regeneration
- cultural consumption
- cultural management
- creative industries
- cultural and leisure theory
- globalisation and the city
- reading the city
The students will acquire the skills to evaluate urban cultural policies from the perspective of the latest expertise in urban and cultural theory. Furthermore, they will be able to formulate innovate strategic plans, aimed at combining and mutually strengthening interests of local cultural creativity and urban development. The course will develop expertise in urban cultural planning and policy, from a strategic, European perspective.