The Unesco Creative Cities network

Since 2004 the Unesco network of creative cities.

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) was created in 2004 to promote cooperation with and among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. The 246 cities which currently make up this network work together towards a common objective: 

1- placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level

2- actively cooperating at the international level.

The Creative Cities Network works as a huge international laboratory of ideas and experiments: each city brings its own local experience projecting it into a global context, favoring the exchange and export of cultural initiatives and the expansion of its own creative industries.

Together, the Creative Cities thus contribute to achieving the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

The Network covers seven creative fields: Crafts and Folk Arts, Media Arts, Film, Design, Gastronomy, Literature and Music.
The cities establish privileged relationships within the referred cluster, share projects and enhance the creative industries of the sector. 

Bologna has been a Unesco Creative City of Music since 2006, the first City awarded the title in Italy.