The Cultural Innovators Forum is multifaceted and dynamic, with regular activities taking place online and in-person. These include:
We hope that joining the Forum will be the beginning of something that:
You’ll understand how your work relates to global movements for change and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It’s okay if you have no idea what these things are right now. That’s what we’re here for!
You’ll join an incredible international community of collaborators dedicated to learning from, sharing and exchanging with each other over the long term.
You’ll use your new ideas and a renewed sense of purpose to increase your impact and to build collaborative solutions to common challenges with your fellow cultural innovators.
You’ll commit to continuing and to doing even more, but not alone. The Cultural Innovators Forum is first and foremost a community, and by becoming part of this community, you will commit to supporting and holding each other, especially during challenging times.
Salzburg Global has been at the forefront of global movements for change since our founding as a initiative for post-war reconciliation in 1947. Cultural Innovators become lifetime members of the Salzburg Global Fellowship network, which in nearly 75 years numbers more than 38,000 Fellows from over 170 countries.
We believe that for maximum impact, the voices of cultural innovators need to be amplified in spaces outside of the arts and culture sector. We actively create opportunities for members of the Cultural Innovators Forum to participate in other areas of our programming and to build cross-sectoral connections with thought leaders from other program areas such as education and work, finance and governance, justice and security, planet and health, and media and voice.
We also offer opportunities for Cultural Innovators to co-create contributions to international workshops and conferences with our partners; to raise awareness of their work through speaking, writing articles and producing/curating social media content for Salzburg Global; and to gain professional experience and paid employment by working with us as contractors.
Over the past decade, our Culture, Arts, and Society series has focused on the transformative power of the arts to shape a better world. Members of the Cultural Innovators Forum are offered opportunities to join these program activities, which focus on actively inserting artists and creatives into efforts to reimagine, build, and ensure futures that are more humane for people and planet.
In 2021, the Culture, Arts, and Society series will focus on the systemic relevance of the arts and culture sector for creative reforms in the four target areas of climate, health, education, and justice. The program will promote and catalyze the intersections between the arts and culture sector and the following four interrelated strands of work:
The first step towards long-term engagement and participation in this dynamic global network is participation in the Annual Global Co-Lab. In 2021, the Annual Global Co-Lab will take place between October 11 – 22, with a time commitment of approximately 3.5 hours per day for that 10-day period. This intensive (but fun) program is structured around a series of online interactive sessions, peer-learning groups, workshops, and creative interventions designed to introduce the newest cohort of Cultural Innovators to each other, to the goals of the Forum, and to Salzburg Global.
Online engagement activities of the network, including Cohort Check-ins and Hub Huddles, require a minimum time commitment of approximately 30-60 minutes every month on an on-going basis. When travel is possible, members of the network meet in various parts of the world for Me to We Meetings and to participate in SDG Systems Change Labs. There are also opportunities for Cultural Innovators who are interested in being more actively involved in by getting involved in the Forum as Co-Creators.
There is no cost to apply to the Cultural Innovators Forum.
For applicants based in the Cultural Innovators Forum Hubs that we are recruiting from in 2021, there is no cost to participate in the Forum. Our partners in your local area have supported the costs of your participation in the network. Please visit the Apply Page to see which hubs will be part of the 2021 Annual Global Co-Lab.
We regret that we are unable to consider applicants from outside of the 2021 Hub locations.