Pan-European Innovation Alliance of Animation, Media Arts and Cultural Creative Industries:
Press release
Date:
October 13
Year:
2023
On September 27th, 2023, the PANEURAMA alliance, financed by ERASMUS+, embarked on its mission to contribute to helping reshape education for the visual industries across Europe, currently facing significant challenges.
The kick-off meeting, held at The Animation Workshop/VIA University College during the Viborg Animation Festival 2023, brought together representatives from educational institutions including Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (DE), Breda University of Applied Sciences (NL), Paris8 University/Arts et Technologies de l’Image (FR) and The Animation Workshop (DK). Joining them were industry partners, including Fortiche (FR), Digic Pictures (HU), Rise Visual Effects (DE), Creative Viborg (DK), Beyond Horizons (DK), Triple Topping (DK), Khora (DK), and CoFlow Visuals (DK).
An industry under constant growth and escalating requirements
The creative industries are undergoing rapid changes in recent years. This leads to new requirements both within business and education. The PANEURAMA alliance puts a spotlight on the escalating skills gap between education, training, and new requirements in the industry, due to changes in technology and workflow. To adapt, the partners cooperate to develop future education strategies serving the digital visual industry. Continuous and open dialogues are essential for comprehension and evaluation, ensuring ongoing and enhanced collaboration between the industry and education sectors. PANEURAMA will help and inspire educations to structure teaching curriculums and plan training activities to match market demands.
Meeting the growing demand for skilled professionals makes it necessary to provide accessible training services, which necessitates a re-evaluation of professional training practices to foster lifelong learning while maintaining a steady and growing learning curve. This can be challenging, as the creative visual industries, spanning from novice students to seasoned professionals, stress the importance of a proficient balance between artistic-, technological-, and storytelling skills.
New technologies and AI should be just another tool in an artist’s toolbox
The PANEURAMA alliance acknowledges several significant industry changes that profoundly impact production and subsequently exert a significant influence on education. Advancements in digital technologies and the development of new AI tools are disrupting production practices and workflows. PANEURAMA partners agree that Artificial Intelligence needs to be seen as another tool in an artist’s toolbox, in addition to changes with Real-Time technologies, Virtual Production, XR technologies, and how they are applied in the industry.
For educational institutions, assessing the emerging opportunities and challenges posed by generative and transformative AI is crucial. This assessment should be conducted with an ethical and legal approach, with the goal of building trust and fostering the widespread adoption of technology. Understanding best practices for how educational institutions can prepare for the changes brought about by AI while identifying new demands and skill gaps is of paramount importance.
Several challenges related to the labour market and soft skills
Numerous changes in the labour market impact digital content development. It can increase difficulties in retaining senior staff, managing stressful work environments, addressing burnout issues, and ensuring a better work-life balance. Managing the work environment poses several challenges due to evolving dynamics in both remote and office work settings. This includes the need to strike a balance between on-site and remote workers, adapt to changes in management systems, and explore new methods for training junior staff.
In the future, if not already today, production is expected to be finished faster with shorter development timelines, demanding employees to uplift their skills and work with technologies that allow faster production processes. The competition between companies in the industry is very high: Due to growth in production, remote working possibilities, and skills gaps, it is hard for the industry to identify and recruit skilled talent. The increase in production makes it particularly important for companies to understand how to grow, upscale and increase production teams, as well as how to keep the project team motivated when working on longer productions while having professionals distributed across several different projects.
PANEURAMA aims to strengthen the European animation, games, and media arts sectors
The PANEURAMA alliance aims to bridge the gap between higher educational institutions and the ever-evolving needs of the animation, games, and VFX industries. We seek to help better equip young talent with the skills demanded by future careers, thereby bolstering the resilience of the European animation, games, and media arts sectors. The project focuses on three main areas: Technological Development, Labor Market & Soft Skills, and Innovation & Entrepreneurship. By facilitating connections between education and industry partners, the project aims to understand market needs and address disparities between education and industry demands.
To assess and reduce mismatches between education and industry, the PANEURAMA alliance will conduct continuous research, online training programs and summer schools for young talent, develop guidelines and recommendations, and organize discussions during conferences and panels.
We would like to thank you all project partners for the participation in the kick off meeting. As well to thank associated partners for their support: EPIC Games, Unity, The Rookies, Ubisoft, Adobe, Netflix Animation, M2 Film, UTS Animal Logic Academy, Gobelins Paris, MoPA, MOME, Nord University
