«Tavrida.ART»: «Captains of Culture» presented strategic project initiatives for their regions

The “Captains of Culture” program is being held at the Meganom Academy for the second time, it has already become a flagship program and, I am sure, its demand will only increase. This is primarily due to the fact that today there is a great demand for modern, progressive managers in the field of culture. The new cultural policy and serious changes in all spheres of life in our society require leaders to have new skills, new approaches in general, and a new look at the work system. After all, the development of culture in the modern context depends on their professionalism and interest. Over the course of two streams of the program, we can observe how a real team of “captains” is being formed — a personnel reserve of effective managers who will lead the ship of Russian culture on a long voyage, — notes the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Olga Lyubimova.

More than 120 managers from 40 constituent entities of the Russian Federation took part in the second stream of the program. Representatives of cultural institutions subordinate to the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, creative associations, government officials in the field of culture, art and creative industries have been formulating projects for innovative changes for their organizations for two months in offline and online formats. In the second module of the program, participants immersed themselves in studying the principles of situational leadership, mastering techniques for effective planning, setting goals, aligning forces and providing resources for the successful functioning of a team, as well as developing skills for managing team interaction and the effectiveness of each individual employee.

Participants worked under the guidance of experienced experts, including trainers for the development of management competencies, analysts and methodologists in the creative industries, authors of educational programs, and experts in the field of personnel training. The captain-mentor of the sailing ships “Sedov” and “Kruzenshtern” Mikhail Novikov also shared his experience with managers in the field of culture; he introduced the participants to the theory and practice of managing a large team as a large ship.

Program experts—representatives of the digital system “PRO.Culture.RF”—shared useful tools for management in the field of culture. Murat Shartan and Olesya Grigorieva discussed the possibilities of this platform with the participants, shared the secrets of marketing in the field of culture and talked about organizing the announcement of cultural events in the regions. “Representatives of cultural institutions now simply need online marketing tools in their work. In the age of digitalization, team members of these institutions need to gain new knowledge in this area, and managers need to successfully build work in this direction in their organizations. The Kultura.RF platform, among other things, provides the following free opportunities: — shared the expert of the “Captains of Culture” program, manager of educational projects of the “PRO.Culture.RF” platform Olesya Grigorieva.

As a result of the program, each participant created their own project for management changes in the organization with a plan for subsequent actions. The final public defense was attended by the authors of the 11 best projects, which were selected by the participants themselves within the community. Among the qualitative changes proposed by managers in the field of culture: a design department for youth initiatives in the region, an automated analytics system for theaters, the development of a mentoring institute in libraries, an audiovisual media library, an innovative educational game based on the ballet tales of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, a center for creative industries and other innovative management ideas in the field of culture and art of the country, which can subsequently qualitatively change the management approach to this area.

Captains of Culture is a very inspiring story. It is important for any leader to ask himself the questions: “Who am I? How do I manage? How can I manage even more effectively?” And it’s very cool that during this program we also developed individual plans for developing ourselves as a leader and as a manager. Now we are faced with the task of bringing this plan into our routine. Even at the “Captains of Culture” we thought not only about what we do when we create this or that cultural product, but also about how to set up processes within our organization as efficiently as possible, what needs to be taught, what new technologies to introduce. My idea for defense was a proposal to create a design department on the basis of my institution. It will become a unifying center for major cultural initiatives in our city, where ideas, resources and people come together. And I’m sure this will be a big step towards building effective work in the cultural sphere within the region, — said Elena Khmelevskaya, a participant in the flagship program “Captains of Culture”, director of the Center for Cultural Development “Sreda” in the city of Kostomuksha in the Republic of Karelia.

The “Captains of Culture” program took place in 2024 in two streams, each of which included two modules. Between modules, participants continued working on projects together with experts in an online format. The second stream of the flagship program “Captains of Culture”, also divided into two modules, took place from September 5 to 10, and from November 1 to 6. Next year, several streams of the program are also planned, one of them will be held for young managers in the cultural sector aged 18 to 35 years.