Europe’s next innovation valley: the Great Creative Region is in Motion

We have entered the liquid era, characterised by consistent instability. At a time where information, images, and sounds are in constant flow, there is one industry that has considerably grown over the past 20 years: the digital creative industry.

Flooding our screens and ears, projecting us into immersive worlds, from video games to digital arts, from videomapping to phygital applications, from social media to streaming channels, podcasts, immersive cinema, this industry is even transforming our cities into media.

The Power of Creative Soft Power

With around €477 billion, nearly 3.95% of added value and more than 8 million jobs across the EU, cultural and creative industries are a pillar of the European economy. Fragmented, dense with small and medium-sized enterprises, intensive in employment and “crucial for innovation”, as the Commission states in its industrial strategy.

Good news! From coal to imagination, it seems that this industry is thriving in the territory at the crossroads of France, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg: the Greater Region.

A cross-border area as green as it is hilly, irrigated by the Rhine, the Saar, the Meuse, and the Moselle: a lush 65,000 km² space bringing together 4 countries, 6 regions, 12 million inhabitants, 3 languages. It also holds the distinction of having a record number of cross-border workers (274,400 in 2023). It also turns out to be the birthplace of Europe, which began as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in the 1950s before becoming the European Union as we know it today.

Urban centres for the development of creative industries, cities like Luxembourg, Differdange, Esch-sur-Alzette, Saarbrücken, Mainz, Trier, Liège, Namur, Mons, Châlons-en-Champagne, Metz, and Strasbourg dot this area marked by the industrial revolution.

The Pressure Points of the Digital Era

Three centuries later, the digital creative revolution presents challenges of a different nature:

• creative professions and intellectual property exposed to generative artificial intelligence,
• market size and the circulation of works and productions,
• the performance of digital infrastructures to remain competitive in an ultra-globalised market,
• the protection of creative biodiversity, cultural and technological sovereignty, and the discoverability of niches cultural,
• the increase in skills and knowledge in a context of constant innovation,
• increasingly hybrid business models,
• the transfer of creative innovations to markets such as aerospace, industry 5.0, training, tourism, healthcare, construction, mobility and more.

Sometimes the oceans of uncertainty turn out to be sources of opportunity. To observe those around you, map out your strengths, and create new areas of action and innovation. Europe is rich in the diversity that is born at the edge of its borders.

Digital innovation has indeed inspired the creation of a "single market": let’s launch a "creative market" in the Greater Region, where ecosystems no longer merely coexist but connect! Festivals, incubation venues, studios of all sizes and across all verticals, artists, universities, research centres, European Capitals of Culture, UNESCO Creative Cities, investment funds, creative innovation platforms: the territory is fertile, the “Great Creative Region” is already here.

If "innovation is the ability to change things" as philosopher Luc de Brabandère says, "creativity is the ability to change one’s perspective on what already exists" and bring about new realities.

At the Crossroads of Europe

Let’s connect our ecosystems to reveal the Greater Region as a thriving valley for our creators, those who transform our cities and recycle creativity as a driver of influence, competitiveness, and soft power, a powerful lever of defence in an age defined by global flows and networks.

From the intention to the roadmap, the work has already started: mapping of our strengths, fostering professional mobility, and coordinating strategies to increase the scale of projects funded by Europe in the Greater Region.

The Greater Creative Region is an initiative of five partners as part of the Walloon presidency of the Greater Region Summit (2025-2026) driven by the digital creative ecosystem wake! by Digital Wallonia (Belgium) and KIKK, XR Wallonia Hitt (Belgium), 1535° creative hub of Differdange (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg), the Region Grand-Est (France) and the K8 (K8 Institut für strategische Ästhetik, Saarland, Germany).

A project supported by Wallonia-Brussels International and Wallonia Export & Investment Agency (AWEX).

Watch the Grande Région créative panel recorded at the 1535° creative hub in the FWRD digital agency studio in Differdange on March 6, 2026, featuring:

• Kristian James Horsburgh (1535° Creative Hub Differdange)
• Marion Gravoulet (Région Grand Est)
• Sebastien Nahon (XR Wallonia HITT and Media Innovation & Intelligibility Lab - MiiL – Université catholique de Louvain)
• Paul Hyvernat (Wallonia-Brussels International)
• Delphine Jenart (KIKK and wake! by Digital Wallonia)

"Let’s go with the flow of digital creativity": together, let’s build the Great Creative Region!

Learn more about wake! by Digital Wallonia

Pour Join la Grande Région créative on Linkedin

Article written by Delphine Jenart for KingKong Magazine (King Kong Magazine)

Published in French on Wallonia-Brussels International