New Culture Development Plan

The first Culture Development Plan of the City of Linz passed in 2000 was the first document which defines guidelines, priorities and framework conditions for the cultural policy of Linz. Apart from the construction of new venues and structural changes in the support programme, the European Capital of Culture year Linz 2009 was a highlight of this strategic development.
After more than ten years, it was time to redefine cultural policy guidelines, priorities and framework conditions, and to determine the position of Linz after Linz09. This new version of the Culture Development Plan (New KEP) is a forward-looking project and positioning of cultural policy, which is based on the development of the previous years and reflects especially the Capital of Culture Year 2009.
At its meeting of 24 January 2013, the City Council Linz approved the new Culture Development Plan with a clear majority.

The Four Guidelines of the New KEP

In the last decades, Linz has transformed from a city of industry to a dynamic city of economy and culture. The course for the development of Linz to a city of culture was already set in the seventies and eighties.
The new Culture Development Plan is designed to be a broad-based and binding strategy paper that ensures the dynamic development of the city`s cultural life in the next ten to fifteen years.It defines the cultural policy scope of action which, in turn, determines strategic objectives and measures, while at the same time provides enough flexibility to allow for developments and challenges. The four guidelines, each of which has three cultural policy priorities, point the way ahead:

● Enhancement of Equality
● Development of Potentials
● Granting Access
● Opening up of the City

The four pillars of the first Culture Development Plan - Culture for All, New Media and Technology, Independent Art Scene and Open Spaces - were redefined and integrated. The Culture Development Plan covers global as well as local issues. Linz can be defined on the basis of the following local topics: commitment to the independent art and culture scene and to the particular importance of media arts, coming to terms with the legacy of National Socialism, and a mediation and participatory approach based on "Culture for All". But global issues in the overall context of the new Culture Development Plan are just as relevant, for instance, the increasing significance of international networks, interdisciplinarity in art, culture and science, accessibility for persons with disabilities, and thus equal opportunities, interculturalism, gender equality, and cultural education.

The European Capital of Culture Linz09 stimulated the enhanced engagement with social and urban matters, and the new Culture Development Plan is one of the measures that will ensure its sustainable impact.

The Process

Participation was one of the focal points of the development process which actively involved as many relevant institutionsas possible, people interested in the artsand from the art and culture scene, as well as politicians. The preparatory work, including an analysis, was launched at the end of 2010. From March to May 2011, qualitative guided interviews with 73 personalities from the art and culture scene in Linz were conducted. The findings from the interviews provided the core themes for the further development of culture as well as the basis for the framework paper, and were then developed in monthly workshops on visions and objectives organised by local cultural institutions.
Workshops and discussions took place between October 2011 and May 2012. Almost 640 personalities, citizens interested in art and experts from different fields participated in the broad-based discussion process.
The entire project took two years.The implementation of the newly defined objectives and measures is scheduled for the next ten years.