Abstract
Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) are increasingly framed as drivers of innovation and regional growth, yet they remain structurally fragmented, digitally uneven, and weakly supported by scalable entrepreneurial infrastructures. While entrepreneurship is frequently promoted as the solution, existing approaches largely focus on individual capability development, with limited attention to institutional embedding or ecosystem-level transformation. Simultaneously, entrepreneurship education research has been criticised for theoretical fragmentation and insufficient integration of digital and AI-related competencies. This developmental paper addresses these gaps by introducing CreaTech (an EU Horizon-funded project) as a systemic capacity-building model designed to embed entrepreneurship within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and reposition them as orchestrators of CCI innovation ecosystems.
Drawing on ecosystem theory and digital entrepreneurship scholarship, we conceptualise CCI entrepreneurship as a socio-technical and institutional process rather than a purely agentic phenomenon. CreaTech operationalises this through a systematic architecture: (1) Institutional Capacity Building at the macro level, (2) Knowledge Labs as the meso-level ecosystem infrastructure, and (3) venture acceleration through a structured, competency-mapped Start-Up Booster Programme. By integrating governance, pedagogy, digital capability, and ecosystem partnerships, the project advances a replicable model for institutionalised entrepreneurial capacity.
Embedded within this framework is an inductive research stream examining “Gen Z preneurship” using LEGO® Serious Play (LSP). Findings from a pilot workshop reveal that digitally native students conceptualise AI as a tool requiring structured education, ethical oversight, and human mediation, rather than a disruptive replacement for entrepreneurial judgement. Security, feedback loops, and institutional responsibility emerge as central themes. Empirically, the study contributes multimodal insights into generational entrepreneurial cognition. Conceptually, it advances the argument that future-oriented entrepreneurship in CCIs must be understood as infrastructural governance work shaped by AI literacy, digital capability, and institutional scaffolding.