Tools & Resources
Innovation

This pilot demonstrates how strategic music ecosystem mapping can align creative potential with strategic city cultural industry development goals. A key turning point was the collaboration with Mosaic Creativity and Innovation Research Hub (coordinated by HEC Montreal, Canada), where international students and professionals from Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Lithuanian, and other countries co-created the research of the pilot, identified ecosystem gaps, and proposed actionable solutions. This brought global thinking to local challenges, while positioning music as a strategic urban asset.

Urban areas increasingly struggle to maintain affordable creative spaces, even though such spaces are vital for cultural vibrancy and innovation. Developers, municipalities, and creatives often share goals — vibrant neighborhoods, social value, sustainable use of space — yet operate with different timeframes, incentives, and languages. The Creative Spaces workshop tool was designed to address this gap by creating a structured environment for dialogue and collaboration, enabling these sectors to explore common ground and generate actionable concepts for space development and use.

The Innovation Training bridged a major knowledge gap: how to make AI tangible for music professionals. Over six months, Hamburg Music built a hands-on training series focused on data, text, video, and image applications. Key decisions included lowering entry barriers, focusing on practical tools, and maintaining small, interactive groups. 

Music Companies lack entry points to explore ongoing developments in the fields of innovation and AI. They also lack of connections and relationships towards innovative companies and startups. Designated networking events can establish ongoing relationships even extending beyond events and provide a source of information about recent trends and developments.

The MusicTech sector is emerging globally, offering opportunities for innovation and cross-sector collaboration. Growth is often constrained by fragmented markets, complex licensing, a shortage of experienced professionals, and a lack of grassroots-level programmes that support ideas from inception to prototype. TechTrack was designed to address this gap, providing a new model that guides participants from initial ideas to tangible prototypes.

There is a plethora of new AI tools every day. Companies and employees lack time and expertise to assess which tools are useful for them. Current dossier formats like newsletters have more general approaches and aren’t tailored to CCIs and/or music business SMEs. Interesting tools can be directly music- or CCI-related or proven tools that enhance productivity in office applications and routines.

The Innovation Coaching Programme helps music companies identify and realize innovation potential — from workflow improvements to new business models or tech adoption. The pilot translated the abstract idea of “innovation” into concrete coaching processes tailored to SME realities. It now presents a step-by-step approach covering design, participant and coach selection, matchmaking, and evaluation. The revision adds hands-on learnings from our pilot: how flexibility, personal matching, and sector-specific understanding create real impact. By illustrating each step with real examples and templates, the revised text demonstrates how the coaching model can be adapted and implemented in other regions to strengthen innovation capacity across the music sector.

The Music Database and Venue Mapping Tool, piloted by Music Latvia (PP4), was developed to address the fragmented and outdated landscape of music industry information in Riga. Instead of creating a standalone website, the tool was integrated into the existing Music Latvia platform to ensure long-term sustainability, higher visibility, and more efficient maintenance.