Building capacity for Intercultural Dialogue in organisations? This is one of four priority areas we outlined in the recommendations we presented at the end of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008. A series of Practice Exchanges & Roundtables will enable us to learn how it translates into practice and to make our demands for public support more concrete. What issues do real people in real organisations face when they try to work more interculturally? When they try to establish and apply a diversity policy to their staff, their governance structures and their work with constituencies?

Pilot in Malmö, Southern Sweden, 15/16 June: This investigation will first be carried out with Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish arts & culture professionals at the Spiritus Mundi Centre, hosted by the Nordic Forum for Interculture. We are looking to holding three more Practice Exchanges of this kind in other regions of Europe (in other professional domains) in the second half of 2009. Interested in being the host? Get in touch to find out more dialogue@intercultural-europe.org.

Intercultural capacity-building leads to social innovation. This view is taken by the European Commission as it plans its Culture Forum on 29/30 September in Brussels, a way mark in the implementation of the Agenda for Culture, an EU policy strategy document adopted in 2007 (intercultural dialogue is one of its objectives). The Platform for Intercultural Europe is a formal interlocutor of the Structured Dialogue between civil society and the EU, based on the Agenda. We are preparing to contribute to the Culture Forum, which will take place in the context of the European Year for Creativity and Innovation 2009.