PACIFICSTREAM

A brief description of your organisation and its track record
Pacificstream Information C.I.C. is a social enterprise based in the Kensington area of Liverpool. The company was established in April 2005 to promote the creative and digital content industries on Merseyside, with a particular focus on technological development, and to facilitate access to a range of European and UK-based research and development projects by members of both the business and education sectors. The project team has extensive experience of creative industries business support and has coordinated a range of European funded Leonardo da Vinci projects (including a virtual incubator for the creative industries). Pacificstream is committed to regional development, supporting regeneration projects and assisting with the development of sustainable social enterprises on Merseyside.
What you would like us to fund
The creation of an online resource for creative industries entrepreneurs, featuring a range of interactive online case studies designed to educate creative industries practitioners about intellectual property (IP) rights (copyright, design right, trade marks etc). These case studies would illustrate the right and wrong ways to go about protecting and using IP (the life blood of any creative enterprise), and show the positive and negative effects that can occur depending on how entrepreneurs handle their IP, and the IP belonging to others. They will be presented in an interactive cartoon format that will not only engage the target group but will help to maintain interest in a topic that, although essential, is typically considered dry. There will be help sheets created to explain the concepts more fully and common legal templates also available, all provided through a dedicated website called Using your Creativity. The case studies are not intended to require the strategic decision-making of complex action mazes, but rather to show in graphic representations the consequences that can result from the way a company handles its IP. Information about the product will de disseminated through business support organisations, flyers and posters, and a series of seminars in community settings to both raise awareness of the importance of IP and to introduce the website.
Why you want to do this work and why your organisation is best equipped to carry it out
Creative industries self-employment is attractive to people from disadvantaged backgrounds because the barriers to entry are often low. People with a talent for design, painting, dance or music can begin to trade with very little financial investment. Many immigrants bring traditional handicraft skills that could be used as the basis for income generation, with the proper protection. However, most new entrepreneurs know little or nothing about IP laws and good practice. In order for individuals to protect their ideas and potentially move into the legal economy, a good understanding of intellectual property rights is essential. This
understanding may also help entrepreneurs to identify income streams and opportunities of which they had not previously been aware, and to ensure that entrepreneurs do not use other people’s IP illegally.
To illustrate: Due to the reduction of production costs many small companies are producing short films. When that film is finished, a television company may become interested. So what are the issues? Has the producer obtained agreements from the performers who appear in the production? Have they used background music that is subject to copyright, and will need clearance? Are they confident of the usual terms of such deals so that they benefit properly from their work and are not “ripped off”? If one or more of these issues have not been dealt with a good opportunity can suddenly become a big problem.
Even business advisers are often ignorant to the facts of IP. So, whilst IP could be considered just one of the issues involved in starting a creative enterprise, it is a greatly misunderstood and overlooked area, which needs specific and effective support. The project team has had a long-standing interest in the subject and has identified the need for change. With long-standing relationships with creative industries business support organisations (who themselves have targets for supporting groups traditionally under-represented in business) we have effective access to both the target group and stakeholder organisations who would benefit from our proposed project and would actively promote and use the product.
What difference the work you would like us to support will make to your organisation and life in the UK (either locally, regionally or nationally)
The initial impact would be the creation of IP aware practitioners, better equipped to benefit from their creativity. This will directly assist in the regeneration of poorer communities by giving people the confidence and knowledge to legally make money from their creativity. This approach could then potentially be rolled out regionally or nationally. The creation of the website and interactive cartoons are themselves examples of IP. Whilst the website in its initial format would be available free, the model could be developed by Pacificstream to teach other topics, and licensed out to other organisations, thus providing an income stream for a company currently dependent on projects for sustainability.

Additional information
This project provides an innovative yet practical approach to teaching entrepreneurs about the essential but complex issue of intellectual property, using interactive, visually appealing case studies. In this way it has the potential to develop best practice in the area of teaching IP and training new entrepreneurs. As the project as a whole initially targets new entrepreneurs, particularly from disadvantaged communities, it has the potential to assist with wealth creation where it is most needed and promote social inclusion.

Press release – VIC (Virtual Incubator for the Creative Industries)

VIC is an online “one stop shop” for anyone setting up a creative industries business, such as graphic designers and artists. This “virtual incubator” provides links to all the information new businesses need, presented in a way that is interesting and accessible to people from a creative background. As well as accessing the most relevant information from around Europe, users can also post their own videos and comments and pass on their business and creative knowledge for the benefit of others.

The VIC project is a collaboration between partners from across Europe, including the UK, Slovakia and Denmark. It has been made possible by support from the Leonardo da Vinci programme, which is part of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. The principal partner is Pacificstream Information C.I.C., a social enterprise based in the Kensington area of Liverpool. Other partners from the North West include the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), the design studio Splinter and the business support organisation Creativebias.

Becoming a partner on a Leonardo da Vinci funded project can be a great opportunity for an SME, whatever sector they are from. Travelling to meetings with European partners can provide new networking opportunities and open up new business prospects, as well as providing a pleasant break from the normal work routine. Research and development work undertaken as part of the project can benefit individual partners, whilst staff members can benefit from professional development as they learn more about evaluation, dissemination and project management in an informal yet supportive setting.

Pacificstream director Roy Jones has worked on a variety of European projects, and would encourage other SME’s to get involved. Roy says “We are currently working on a project designed to help creative industries practitioners like artists and musicians understand the value of their creativity and the protection offered to them under copyright law. It’s been a great opportunity for our staff to learn more about these issues, which will benefit our company in the long run.”

For more information about the VIC project or Leonardo da Vinci projects in general contact Roy Jones on 0151 907 2950 or visit www.pacificstream.info or www.vicreative.org

INCKA – Leonardo LLL Development of Innovation Proposal

This project aims to create a dynamic and innovative software application that creative industries entrepreneurs and creators can use to identify the IP in their business, and teach them how to protect and exploit it.

IPR Awareness - Esmee Fairburn

Esmee Fairburn supports work that focuses on the UK’s cultural life, education, the natural environment and enabling people who are disadvantaged to participate more fully in society.

Awareness raising programme for start-up creative entrepreneurs to convince them of the value of their ideas and knowledge by using a graphic book approach and a training programme.

DONE – Leonardo LLL Transversal Programme

With The Academy of Humanities and Economics in Lodz, Poland

HR MultiPack - an On-line Multilingual Human Resources Training Package
Developing an On-line Multilingual Human Resources Training Package is intended
to be a training package for VET trainers or tutors as well as trainees at academic
level. The package will comprise five thematic modules each accompanied by a set
of cases illustrating SMEs’ organisational and cultural context in partner countries.
Additionally, there will be developed a multilingual glossary concentrating on LWULT
languages. The objective of the project is to upgrade vocational qualifications of
prospective employees in the field of human resources and provide trainers and
tutors with a training tool that can improve their professional technique spectrum.

NEXUS – FP7 Large-scale integrating project (IP) proposal ICT Call 3
FP7-ICT-2007-3

With the University of Stockholm, Sweden

Nexus- Technology Enhanced Supervision
The increasing numbers of students at universities do not match an equivalent increase of university funding and lecturing staff. Supervision is a time intensive and individual endeavor, based on private dialogues between supervisor and student. Time and funding allocated for supervision is not proportional to the actual time supervisors need to invest for each individual student.

The problem with decreasing funding and/time allocated to thesis supervision has far reaching consequences for thesis completion rates and in a long perspective even for quality deficient/problems. Feedback opportunities for students are too few for each student, which leads to problems for students in staying on track and completing their project within the allocated time frame. Another crucial problem for social exclusion regards students from non-academic backgrounds (or immigrants) needing more feedback than students from academic backgrounds. In a situation when a large number of students need qualified education part of this communication has to be provided in other qualitative ways than private unique dialogues.

The Nexus project aims to achieve mass-individualization for thesis supervision through technology enhanced learning in order to create economies of scale in thesis supervision, create a digital portal for digital scientific research content, increase European collaboration on thesis supervision, and remedy social exclusion.

The objective is to provide faculties and students with a self-adaptive and contextual sensitive ICT-based tool that enables mass-individualisation of thesis supervision on all levels of higher education. This will be achieved through merging the best of distance and campus education, creating a flexible educational tool useful in face-to-face supervision, mixed mode, or pure online supervision.

Leonardo – Partnership Project

With the Employment Agency of Galati, Romania

Best practices changes in the Adult Training Strategic Management and Structural Funds Project Management.

TEMPUS – Development of creative industries MA/MBA

With the Siberia Aerospace Academy, Krasnoyarsk, Russia

Pioneering a MA in Creative Economy with the collaboration of three universities in Europe and three in Russia. Contributing to the MA course design and implementation.

One of my last roles at St Helens College was as project manager for the development, and fund raising for an environmental project. The result was an analytical lab using state-of-the-art X-ray spectrometer processes.
This article from Liverpool Post.
Liverpool POST Friday, March 14th, 2008

Praise for college as success Beacon

ST HELENS College was yesterday mentioned in a Government White Paper aimed at making the UK a world leader in "innovative" businesses.
An innovation fund will be set up to back businesses and the number of skills academies will be expanded into every major sector of the economy.
An Innovation Research Centre will be set up and the Government said it will create new markets for its £150bn spending on goods and services every year.
St Helens College features in the White Paper as an example of how working closely with local and national businesses and universities can encourage innovation.
The college bought an X ray fluorescence spectrometer to provide an industry standard item of equipment with which to attract trainees from local and regional small and medium sized enterprises.
Innovation, universities and skills secretary John Denham said: "We must make the UK the best place in the world to run an innovative business or public service.
"It is the British people who will create a world beating innovation nation and that is why we must unlock talent at all levels by investing in skills, research and the exploitation of knowledge."

A temporary web site for the proposed INCKA site is now live.
Visit: www.incka.org