Creative Futures Academy (CFA) travelled to Brussels this September to play a leading role at Creative Skills Week 2026, hosting a landmark session — The Irish Case: High-Level Debate — in the LUCA Auditorium at LUCA School of Arts. The event was recognised as an Associated Event of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2026, giving CFA a platform to bring an Irish perspective to a wider European conversation about creativity, skills, and the future of work.

Creative Skills Week is a collaborative European meeting point for projects, partnerships, networks, institutions, policymakers, educators, cultural organisations, businesses and creative professionals, all exploring how culture, creativity, skills and innovation can shape Europe’s future. The week is co-organised by EIT Culture & Creativity, CYANOTYPES and Creative Futures Academy, in collaboration with the Creative Pact for Skills, CREDEX and the GreenCCIrcle project.

The event is kindly hosted by ICHEC Brussels Management School and LUCA School of Arts, and is curated by ELIA.

Photos: LyanneArt

Held on Monday 7th September from 16:30 to 18:30 CEST, The Irish Case: High-Level Debate brought educators, artists, policymakers and industry leaders together — both in the LUCA Auditorium and online — to examine how Ireland is positioning creative skills, micro-credentials and flexible learning models within its wider innovation, education and economic strategy.

The morning session closed with a musical performance by Clare Sands a sixth-generation fiddle player and bilingual singer from Cork, Ireland organised by Creative Futures Academy.

The afternoon session, The Irish Case, opened with Louise Allen, Director of Creative Futures Academy, tracing the story of CFA’s investment, foresight and impact, before moving into two case studies and two panel discussions. Jennie Moran, Artist and Programme Lead on the Professional Certificate in Creative Hospitality (NCAD/CFA), presented a case study on creative hospitality. A second case study centred on A Version of Life, a multi-disciplinary performance created in Trapdoor Theatre at University College Dublin, with Robert Power in conversation with Professor PJ Mathews, Director of CFA at UCD.

The first panel, moderated by Professor Alex Milton, Head of the School of Design at NCAD and CFA Institutional Lead, explored the wider impact of design and creative skills across sectors, featuring Martin McGinn, Shane Casey and Charlotte Barker. The second panel, moderated by Barbara Revelli of ELIA, asked whether Ireland’s model was one worth scaling for creative skills and cultural capacity across Europe, with contributions from Vivienne Patterson, Sarah Glennie, David Smith, Regina Uí Chollatáin and Barbara Stacher.

The afternoon closed with ‘Food for Thought’, a reception and high-level networking session with cultural programme, held in the LUCA Garden. Like the debate that preceded it, the reception was hosted by Creative Futures Academy (CFA) as a recognised Associated Event of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2026.

The networking reception was hosted by Jennie Moran, with a live musical performance by Clare Sands, celebrating contemporary Irish creativity and cultural connection as the day’s conversations continued in a more informal setting. Dressed in gold emergency blankets, selected delegates from the conference were asked to participate in the performance centred around hospitiality, asking them to step a little further into the role of host. This involved converting the act of distributing canapés to a celebratory spectacle of care and generosity.

Reflecting on the day, CFA highlighted three themes that ran through the discussion:

• Creative skills weren’t treated as a “nice to have” — they were framed as infrastructure for innovation, health, and how entire sectors adapt to change.
• Micro-credentials and flexible learning pathways were shown to be opening doors for people who don’t fit the traditional student mould.
• Some of the strongest moments came when graduates and practitioners spoke directly about what CFA training had made possible in their own work — spanning arts and health, speculative design, and creative hospitality.

Thanks all round

CFA extends its sincere thanks to the panellists who brought honesty and depth to the conversation, and to the artists whose performances framed the day: Louise Allen, Jennie Moran, Professor Alex Milton, Martin McGinn, Shane Casey, Charlotte Barker, Robert Power, Professor PJ Mathews, Barbara Revelli, Vivienne Patterson, Sarah Glennie, David Smith, Clare Sands, Barbara Stacher and Regina Uí Chollatáin.

CFA also thanks ELIA, LUCA School of Arts, ICHEC Brussels Management School, and everyone behind Creative Skills Week for the invitation to bring the Irish case to a European stage.

Watch it back

For anyone who missed the session live, or who wants to revisit it, the full recording is available here:

Watch the livestream recording: https://vimeo.com/showcase/11066277

The conversation continues

This was only the beginning of the conversation. CFA will continue to push for creative skills to be recognised as central to how Ireland and Europe invest in education, innovation and industry.

Photos: LyanneArt