The Cultural Heritage Programme has brought together three organisations with expertise in their fields. RISE with the foresight and research that will take us into the future, Västerbotten Museum with its hindsight and knowledge of cultural heritage, and eXpression Umeå with its expertise in business development for the creative and cultural industries. Together they created a business development programme with a focus on cultural heritage for creative and cultural industries. 

The cultural heritage programme highlights both the importance of understanding the business side of things but also being able to communicate something deeper and connected to the place you come from, says Per Vågebrant, business coach eXpression Umeå. 

In addition to workshops on topics such as sustainability, storytelling, the customer journey and sales, the participants have also had the opportunity to visit the Västerbotten Museum's archive, located in a secret location and rarely open to anyone other than the museum's staff. A guided tour of a small part of the collection gave great impressions and a deeper understanding of the cultural heritage. 

The participants have also had to develop ways of communicating about their own activities. They have had to put into words why cultural heritage is important for their particular creativity. 

It was the storytelling and finding the importance of the place where you're working that was pervasive. It was so valuable. You realised that we participants come from the same core but that we bring different parts of it with us. It was the cultural heritage that tied us together. We got a contemporary, but also historically retrospective landing in our place. Liv Bladh. 

Liv is a florist and runs the company Flora Liv Bladh. She works pictorially and sculpturally with plants and Västerbotten has become her palette. She uses both cultivated and wild flora and much of it is grown in her own garden. The cultural heritage programme gave her time and space to formulate first in text and then in words how the place plays a role in her work. She describes having it delivered and packaged in a professionally produced film as a luxury. It was a tangible and useful result of the work she put into shaping the words about her business.  

Gunilla Axelsson is creating a book on rootcraft, a craft technique she wants to preserve for the future. In addition to descriptive texts and images, the book also comes with QR codes that lead the reader to film clips showing how Gunilla Eriksson's hands perform specific steps.  

The programme has given me confidence in my book project. They have believed in the idea from the start and really pushed me on my idea. I have received many concrete tips. Everything from how to talk and tell stories, how to write on the website to how to be found on Google," says Gunilla.  

Besides new knowledge, participants also value the network created by the programme. 

It has been great fun to get to know the other participants and gain an insight into their activities and crafts. The network of contacts that I have gained through the programme is really valuable. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity, as the Cultural Heritage Programme has provided me with fantastic opportunities," he concludes. Gunilla Axelsson. 

Liv also expresses how valuable the network has been. But the programme has not only been valuable for the participants. Organisations have also taken away insights and experiences from the programme. 

It has been a positive element in the museum's endeavour to make our rich regional cultural heritage accessible and alive. Getting creators of all kinds to think about what is regionally specific and what heritage they are working in has been very nice to see, says Emma Ewadotter, project manager Västerbotten Museum. 

The cultural heritage programme is part of one of four work packages under the Structural Funds project Designing for long livity. The other work packages include among others S-P-O-K, a digital platform for local production and the podcast 'Kreativa Norrland' which highlights and visualises creative and cultural industries in Norrland.