I-Media-Cities is the initiative of 9 European Film Libraries, 5 research institutions, 2 technological providers and a specialist of digital business models to share access to and valorise audiovisual (AV) content from their collections for research purposes in a wide range of social sciences (sociology, anthropology, urban planning, etc). The project revolves around cities in European history and identity. A huge quantity of fictional and non-fictional AV works (from the end of the 19th century onwards) in their collections describe cities in all aspects, including physical transformation and social dynamics. Such material could prove of enormous value to scholars in different fields of study. I-Media-Cities plans integration and technical development work to push interoperability among 9 archives and generate two types of e-environments to be used by researchers and innovators for research and other creative purposes. This will allow new approaches to research in social sciences and unleash creativity, in new forms of delivery and consumption of that content which the creative industry would be able to propose for instance in tourism or in the cultural economy. To make that possible, the project relies on collaboration among three main components: a) FHI (Film Holding Institutions); b) research institutions in different areas of social sciences; c) expertise in exploitation processes of digital content. At the end of the project, we will deliver a digital content access platform (interoperable and multilingual), made available to a growing community of researchers and creatives Europe-wide to push the boundaries of what we can learn, through AV material on cities, on European history and identity. The legacy of I-Media-Cities will be a new model for research on digital sources (applicable also to other subject areas), plus appropriate exploitation plans to consolidate and expand the platform into the European reference initiative on AV digital content.

ICSS (International Creative Soundtrack Studies) is a strategic partnership with the aim to develop an international programme in music composition for the audio-visual named InMICS (International Master in Composition for Screen).The partnership is composed of 4 higher artistic education institutions with a great expertise in teaching music composition for the audio-visual and of 4 professional partners active in the fields of cinema and audio-visual arts and showing a particular interest in musical creation: Lyon CNSMD, coordinator, and Aubagne International Film Festival (France), KASK & Conservatorium/School of Arts Gent and Film Fest Gent (Belgium), Conservatorio di Musica G.B. Martini and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna (Italy), Faculty of Music/University of Montreal and Permission Inc specialised in copyright clearance. (Canada).In addition to the development of the curriculum, a study was written and published. It consisted of a mapping process to provide an overview of curricula dedicated to composition for screen offered in Europe and North America. The analysis was based on identifying the existing of those curricula with the institutions specialised in audiovisual studies. Another objective was to determine current characteristics of the professional sector in terms of artistic, technological and economical aspects linked to music creation for screen.This study relied on the feedback of various representatives of the sector: teachers and students in composition for screen, sound design and audiovisual studies, and professionals involved in the large range of the audiovisual production area. Partners developed questionnaires and did a series of interviews.This study has been very useful to the partnership as it gave precise keys of understanding on the challenges and needs of the professional area in order to build a curriculum which corresponds to the sector specificities.The innovative aspect of ICSS is both powered by objectives and its structure relying on a right balance between the involvement of academic institutions and professional structures, profiting from the participation of KASK & Conservatorium/School of Arts Gent, educating both musicians and filmmakers and the association of 2 North American partners bringing their enriching expertise and their specific network to the project.The InMICS curriculum, ready to be integrated to an international academic offer, is unique in its field since it concentrates its training on the pooling of expertise and specific teaching methods of the 4 educational partners, on the cooperation between composers and audiovisual artists and on the immersion of students within an international network of professionals. InMICS brings together the academic and the professional world in order to enhance the employment opportunities of its graduate students.The singularity and innovative peculiarity of this educational offer lies in the very specific structure of the curriculum awarded by a double diploma. According to his/her profile and background and his/her professional project, each student will be take part in an individualised two-year programme, taking advantage of a double specialisation in two different institutions but also of courses delivered simultaneously to the entire group of students by the 4 institutions through e-learning courses or visio-conference.The quality of the international programme InMICS relies on the expertise of the partnership members and on the leading international figures of field that have been associated to the project. The diversity the stakeholders, their expertise, their background, their activity and their skills enlarged the perspectives in terms of geographical coverage, aesthetics and working habits. During the 3 years of this cooperation, the partnership conceived pedagogical and artistic pilot activities, supervised by professional experts, in order to experiment pedagogical contents and methods and to precisely and knowingly confirm choices and decisions taken during the development of the InMICS programme.The communication and dissemination activities have been key aspects of the process. The partnership has promoted the work done and hopes that it will launch new initiatives via the use of dedicated tools: website, Facebook page, newsletters, flyers, banners and videos. On top of that, partner festivals, known for their large audience and international dimension, participated in the large outreach of the dissemination events: a large panel of students, teachers and professionals, in order to recruit the best possible candidates at an international level and to exchange good practices.One coupled and sustainable effect of the activities and results of the project is to strengthen the cooperation between the academic and the professional fields, the promotion of this specific sector of the artistic creation, still under-represented in the academic area, and the incentive to create new pedagogical offers.