Mapping Skaraborg's Cultural Infrastructure

The report is included as part of the project Cultural infrastructure within Skaraborg, which constitutes a first step of the Skaraborg Network City Strategy, financed by the Norwegian Agency for Growth and led by Skaraborg's Municipal Association.

The basic purpose of the report has been to identify ongoing cultural activities in Skaraborg's fifteen municipalities that have been judged to have large capacities of various kinds. Skaraborgs Kommunalförbund and RISE have specified a model that is based on the implementation of key projects and network management. Key projects consist of concrete cross-border processes, efforts and activities. The key projects are guided by network governance, which is designed and run in cooperation between the actors involved.

The report's survey includes two parts: A current analysis of ongoing cultural activities in Skaraborg's fifteen municipalities that are considered to have great qualities with a high level of knowledge and innovation A forecast model with special focus on the future place and societal role of cultural activities in Skaraborg.

A shared vision of cultural infrastructure holds opportunities that can contribute to significant alliances between Skaraborg's fifteen municipalities. This type of cross-cutting inter-municipal collaboration aims to generate long-term structures that strengthen culture and its role in society.

The cultural infrastructure of the network city of Skaraborg consists of places that are carriers of knowledge dependent on local identity and as a generative force for new forms of cultural expression. The knowledge geography of the network city is a central concept in the context in the sense that Skaraborg's cultural development potential is based on the assets and opportunities of local places - especially through those who live and work there - which affect the knowledge that is produced, in the best case new knowledge as an effect of network geographical adjustment and cultural exchange.