In Modena, Italy, the cultural sector plays an important role in the city’s current and long-term projected development. Currently the cultural media and creative services industries provide significant employment opportunities throughout the city, across the creative sectors from audiovisual content to graphic design and fashion. Today more than 3,200 creative businesses employ almost 12,000 professionals. Modena has also made significant efforts to actively incorporate media arts projects into the city’s urban development policy. The results are clearly visible, over the last 5 years stakeholders have used public and private funds amounting to at least USD 6.88 million, with an average of USD 1.83 million per year towards urban regeneration. This has resulted in the sector earning an annual income amounting to USD 5.50 million, a clear demonstration that the Modena’s creative supply chain of Media Arts is dynamic and promising. Every year Modena hosts the NODE festival devoted to the uniting of visual arts with music, cinema and new technologies. Comprising interactive installations created by video makers and sound-designers, the festival also searches for media based works and artists from all over the world. The festival has become a growing hub of global media-centric innovation, exchange and proactive artistic and technological development.

Added Value:
As a Creative City of Media Arts, the following steps will be important:
● Strengthening its international cooperation with co-productions and the creation of a circuit for artistic productions;
● Improving the access to culture for all through an increasing use of media and digitalization;
● Fostering the development of training, production and research centres, also available to international partners;
● Offering new opportunities for independent productions by cultural associations and creative businesses in order to promote the territory's employment and attractiveness; and
● Transforming disused places into 'cultural factories' to strengthen its positioning as a city of arts, technology and smart innovation.