Mapping of Initiatives on Culture, Health and Well-being

Turku was the first European Capital of Culture to highlight links between art and health. Well-being was at the heart of Turku's year as European Capital of Culture. Health, science and culture were intertwined during the title year with elderly people encouraged to participate in cultural activities, accessibility improved and shows focused on healthy living. In an innovative strategy, doctors were given the licence to hand out 'cultural prescriptions' as part of their treatment of patients.
According to the Capital's programme publication, culture is an important part of the activities promoting well-being and health. Turku has been a forerunner in research on the health benefits of physical activity as well as in the implementation of the results. Turku also wants to lead the way as a city that promotes the health effects of culture. Well-being and quality of life form one of the three strategic areas of focus for the City of Turku. Promotion of the health of the local residents is one of the critical success factors in implementing this. The activities must primarily focus on the preventive activities rather than treating the problems that appear.

Although the health benefits achieved through culture can only be seen over time and pointing out causality is difficult, investing in cultural services is an economical way of promoting well-being. As the Capital of Culture, Turku coordinates an extensive project unit combining the arts, culture and well-being including research, international cooperation, learning from European experiences, the development of applied practical projects and services as well as distributing new information and experiences. Turku belongs to the European Healthy Cities Network of the World Health Organisation in which well-being is seen as a central part of the development of cities.

This project focuses on the interface of performing arts, health and development. Clowndoctors personify the social dimension of performing arts by turning the performance into a therapeutic and restorative experience and not merely a recreational moment. Through humour, interactive play and social/educational theatre, hospital clowning greatly improves the health care environment. Clowndoctors performances provide a much needed psychosocial support their audience, they help empowering vulnerable groups and fighting stereotypes against people with disabilities.
"The Faces behind the Nose" project is centered in raising the profile of and deepening the understanding for the benefits of hospital clowning among the general public in Europe and beyond. Its focus on the training and exchange of artists and artistic approaches to hospital clowning promotes the circulation of performing artists and their works and allows for the internationalization of their careers. The project envisions the transfer of know-how and the implementation of new formats to reach new audiences (in other geographic areas and/or from different cultural and social groups). The goal is to promote the wellbeing of sick and hospitalized persons, allowing everyone to benefit from and participate in cultural initiatives.

The planned activities will benefit more than 300 performing artists in 9 EU Member States, and also patients in non-EU countries (outreach to BH and 2 Emergency Smile missions). This multilingual and diversity of artistic expressions promotes intercultural dialogue, fosters social cohesion and allows for bridging the gap between performing arts in convention settings and performing arts in hospitals.

The project is coordinated by RED NOSES Clowndoctors International (AT) and includes national RED NOSES NPOs from 9 European countries (AT, CZ, DE, HR, HU, LT, PL, SI and SK) and the European Federation of Hospital Clown Organizations (BE).

European initiative based on the upcycling concept, that is to say, reuse and recycle waste materials to create valuable, useful or simply aesthetically pleasing objects. Thus, we wanted to provoke critical thinking on general society on issues like social and environmental challenges or the throw-away world we are living nowadays. Artcycling gave a unique opportunity to 85 European artists from underrepresented groups, especially those with disabilities, as for instance mental health issues, to develop their creativity and to enter/reenter the labour market. Art can be a useful tool to fight against stigma and discrimination and to promote a respectful mentality with our environment and with the handcraft, with well-done things, encouraging people to think of new and creative ways to use things, instead of simply buying new consumer goods.

Erasmus+ is the EU Programme in the fields of education, training, youth and sport. The mechanism acknowledged that rurope needs more cohesive and inclusive societies which allow citizens to play an active role in democratic life. Education, training, youth work and sport are key to promote common European values, foster social integration, enhance intercultural understanding and a sense of belonging to a community, and to prevent violent radicalisation. Erasmus+ is an effective instrument to promote the inclusion of people with disadvantaged backgrounds, including newly arrived migrants. Erasmus+ promoted equity and inclusion by facilitating the access to participants with disadvantaged backgrounds and fewer opportunities compared to their peers whenever disadvantage limits or prevents participation in transnational activities for reasons such as:
- disability (i.e. participants with special needs): people with mental (intellectual, cognitive, learning), physical, sensory or other disabilities;
- cultural differences: immigrants or refugees or descendants from immigrant or refugee families; people belonging to a national or ethnic minority; people with linguistic adaptation and cultural inclusion difficulties;
- health problems: people with chronic health problems, severe illnesses or psychiatric conditions;
- social obstacles: people facing discrimination because of gender, age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, etc.; people with limited social skills or anti-social or risky behaviours; people in a precarious situation; (ex-)offenders, (ex-)drug or alcohol abusers; young and/or single parents; orphans.
Although the programmes does not explicitely mention the role of culture in well-being, in practice many funded projects addressed the issues of health and well-being with cultural and educational means.

For over 15 years, the URBACT programme has been the European Territorial Cooperation programme aiming to foster sustainable integrated urban development in cities across Europe. It is an instrument of the Cohesion Policy, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, the 28 Member States, Norway & Switzerland. Urbact is part of Interreg Strand C, which includes 3 other interregional cooperation instruments that reinforce the effectiveness of EU cohesion policy (Interreg Europe, Interact and ESPON programmes). URBACT’s mission is to enable cities to work together and develop integrated solutions to common urban challenges, by networking, learning from one another’s experiences, drawing lessons and identifying good practices to improve urban policies. Following the success of the URBACT I (2002-2006) and URBACT II (2007-2013) programmes, URBACT III (2014-2020) was developed to continue to promote sustainable integrated urban development and contribute to the delivery of the Europe 2020 strategy. URBACT uses resources and know-how to strengthen the capacity of cities to deliver integrated urban strategy and actions on the thematic according to their challenges. The main target participants include practitioners, city managers, elected representatives and stakeholders from other public agencies, the private sector and civil society. The document ”URBACT III Operational Programme” adopted by the European Commission in 2014 stresses the fact that cities need to act in a comprehensive way, coordinating different policies that relate to the main services that their inhabitants need: water, energy, housing, transport, culture, health, green and urban spaces, etc. To tackle all urban challenges, the city needs a holistic approach bringing together economic opportunity, multimodal mobility, energy efficiency and renewability, quality of the natural and built environment and promotion of the cultural heritage, development of strong public services and amenities in a sustainable an inclusive way.

The ERDF aims to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the European Union by correcting imbalances between its regions. The priorities and rules of the ERDF for the 2014-2020 period are laid down in Regulation (EU) No 1301/2013 on the European Regional Development Fund and on specific provisions concerning the Investment for growth and jobs goal. ERDF finances programmes in shared responsibility between the European Commission and national and regional authorities in Member States. The Member States' administrations choose which projects to finance and take responsibility for day-to-day management. The Regulation acknowledges that:
- it is necessary to promote innovation and the development of SMEs, in emerging fields linked to European and regional challenges such as creative and cultural industries and innovative services, reflecting new societal demands, or to products and services linked to an ageing population, care and health, eco-innovation, the low-carbon economy and resource efficiency.
- in order to promote social inclusion and combat poverty, particularly among marginalised communities, it is necessary to improve access to social, cultural and recreational services, through the provision of small-scale infrastructure, taking account of the specific needs of persons with disabilities and the elderly.
One of the programme investment priorities is: promoting social inclusion, combating poverty and any discrimination, including by investing in health and social infrastructure which contributes to national, regional and local development, reducing inequalities in terms of health status, promoting social inclusion through improved access to social, cultural and recreational services and the transition from institutional to community-based services.
The ERDF supported several types of activities in order to contribute to its investment priorities, including:
- investment in social, health, research, innovation, business and educational infrastructure;
- investment in the development of endogenous potential through fixed investment in equipment and small-scale infrastructure, including small-scale cultural and sustainable tourism infrastructure, services to enterprises, support to research and innovation bodies and investment in technology and applied research in enterprise.

Interreg Europe is a cooperation programme co-financed by EU Cohesion policy’s European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Interreg Europe is part of Interreg Strand C, which includes 3 other interregional cooperation instruments that reinforce the effectiveness of EU cohesion policy (Interact, URBACT and ESPON programmes). The European Union strives to reduce disparities in the levels of development, growth and quality of life in and across Europe’s regions. The Interreg Europe programme was therefore designed to support interregional learning among policy relevant organisations across Europe. The programme’s objective is to enable public authorities and other relevant organisations to actively learn from the experience of other regions. This is a learning process which involves identifying, analysing, and transferring good practices with the aim of improving regional development policy instruments and ultimately delivering solutions that benefit all citizens. It has 5 main policy objectives, including one on education, social inclusion, integration of third-country nationals, health care, culture and sustainable tourism (Objective 4: ‘A more social Europe’). The specific objectives of ”A more social Europe” related to health and to culture are: equal access to health care, health systems resilience, family-based and community-based care, and respectively, culture and tourism for economic development, social inclusion, and social innovation. Although the Programme does not mention the specific link between culture and health, there is great potential for synergies in the funded projects because the two fields are included in the same policy objective (Objective 4: ‘A more social Europe’).

Horizon Europe is the EU’s multiannual funding programme for research and innovation between 2021-2027. Three strategic documents outlining the implementation of the programme in its first years reveal the link made between culture and health so far:
1) The Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2021-2024 defines the key strategic orientations for the first four years of programme. The document aims to ensure an effective interface between EU policy priorities, and programme activities and ultimately, the research and innovation projects funded by Horizon Europe. Pillar II of the Programme, Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness has 6 clusters, including one for Health (cluster 1) and one for Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society (cluster 2). The promotion of social cohesion and inclusiveness and the health and well-being of its people are central aims of the European Union’s policies and programmes. The Strategic Plan acknowledges cross-cluster complementarities between the Health cluster and the Culture cluster.
2) Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021-2022. Health cluster is the action plan for the implementation of the first two years of cluster 1 Health. It contributes to six expected impacts set out by the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2021-2024: 1 - Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society; 2 - Living and working in a health-promoting environment; 3 - Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden; 4 - Ensuring access to innovative, sustainable and high-quality health care; 5 - Unlocking the full potential of new tools, technologies and digital solutions for a healthy society; 6 - Maintaining an innovative, sustainable and globally competitive health related industry. The document also stresses that importance of cross-fertilisation and other synergies between EU-funded projects under the different pillars and clusters of Horizon Europe. For instance, it mentions the welcome intersections with cluster 2 Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society, such as on health inequalities, on other inequalities affecting health, or on citizens’ behaviour and engagement, but also on health economics and economic models, on cost-effectiveness, fiscal sustainability and accessibility of health care, or on adaptation of public health systems to societal challenges (climate change, environmental degradation, migration, emerging epidemics, etc.).
3) Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021-2022. Culture, creativity and inclusive society is the action plan for the implementation of the first two years of Culture cluster. It includes several calls for proposals that are relevant for the link between culture and health. One example is the call - New ways of participatory management and sustainable financing of museums and other cultural institutions, which also aims to promote the role of museums and other cultural institutions in well-being, health, resilience, social inclusion and society’s dealing with trauma and post-crisis recovery.

EU's flagship programme supporting the culture and audiovisual sectors. It has 3 main strands: Culture (covers cultural and creative sectors with the exception of the audiovisual sector), Media (covers the audiovisual sector) and the Cross-sectoral strand (actions across all cultural and creative sectors). The Programme encourages inclusion, equality, diversity and participation, which, where appropriate, shall be achieved through specific incentives that: (a) ensure that people with disabilities, people belonging to minorities and people belonging to socially marginalised groups have access to the cultural and creative sectors and that encourage their active participation in those sectors, including in both the creative process and audience development; and (b) foster gender equality, in particular as a driver of creativity, economic growth and innovation. The Programme encompasses the fundamental role of European culture and media in citizens’ well-being and in empowering them to take informed decisions.

EU's flagship programme supporting the culture and audiovisual sectors. It has 3 main strands: Culture (covers cultural and creative sectors with the exception of the audiovisual sector), Media (covers the audiovisual sector) and the Cross-sectoral strand (actions across all cultural and creative sectors). The dual objective of the Programme was to safeguard cultural and linguistic diversity and strengthen the competitiveness of the European cultural and creative sectors. The programme encouraged organisations to cooperate across disciplines and borders, as well as to develop new practices and innovations to reinforce the competitiveness and the resilience of the cultural and creative sectors. The programme funded a significant amount of projects addressing the connection between arts and culture and well-being or health (see the programme results platfom : https://culture.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe/projects/search).