The European Crafts Alliance (ECA) is proud to announce the successful conclusion of CRAFTING, a three-year project co-funded by the European union that has delivered meaningful and lasting results for the European craft sector.
Over its three-year journey, the project reached nearly 3 million people across our network’s digital channels with engagement across diverse events and initiatives surpassing 1.4 million people throughout Europe.
The ECA network itself grew to 38 member organisations spanning 23 European countries, forging new partnerships and strengthening the sector’s collective voice.
Key achievements include:
- With project support, almost 500 events were organised throughout Europe, showcasing the rich diversity of European craftsmanship.
- Nearly 1,000 craftspeople and facilitators participated directly in these events and activities.
- Financial Support for Members enabled over 60 training and networking activities that equipped over 8,000 craftspeople with new skills and ideas and reached audiences of over 1 million people.
The project produced a series of groundbreaking sectoral studies, including the European Market for Crafts report, which revealed a market of 153 million consumers valued at €50 billion. For the first time ever, this provided a clear, evidence-based overview of the sector’s true economic scale and potential, offering valuable insights to policymakers and craft organisations alike.
CRAFTING also invested in knowledge-sharing and professional development. We delivered 3 Annual Conferences and 6 Knowledge Exchange Residencies that brought together ECA members and stakeholders to share ideas and solutions that were then passed on to tens of thousands of local professionals. Our commitment to sustainability, circularity, social inclusion, innovation, and digital advancement was further demonstrated through a Mass Open Online Course (MOOC) and a series of 6 New European Bauhaus (NEB) webinars with over 2,000 participants/attendees.
- 58 small craft business owners through enterprise management trainings,
- equipped 120 craft practitioners via Digital Training Programmes,
- Over 80 dedicated residencies encouraged rich, cross-border exchanges of skills and traditions.
Through CRAFTING, European craftsmanship was showcased at major international events such as Révélations 2023 (Paris, France), Contemporania 2024 (Barcelona, Spain), Maestria – European Prize for Applied Arts 2024 (Mons, Belgium), and the Biennial of Contemporary Glass Jewellery – FUSION Biennial, to over 61,000 visitors. The project’s support for the three editions of the European Artistic Crafts Days enabled almost 200 events across nearly 30 countries, bringing the beauty and skill of European crafts to new audiences and new countries, like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Sweden and Ukraine.
“We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved together with our remarkable network of members, partners, and craftspeople across Europe,” said Laura Miguel Baumann, ECA General Secretary who spearheaded the project’s creation and overall management. “These achievements demonstrate how the CRAFTING project has strengthened our sector with groundbreaking knowledge and practical support, paving the way for our members and partners to keep shaping the future together through CRAFTSNET.”
As the CRAFTING project concludes, we are thrilled to announce the launch of CRAFTSNET, our new 1,194,304€ EU co-funded project. CRAFTSNET will continue to support the sector with fresh opportunities, including:
- Financial Support for ECA Members to organise different events,
- cross-European Knowledge Exchanges for crafts facilitators,
- train the trainers capacity building on business management and digital technologies,
- participation in major European craft events,
- a podcast series dedicated to European crafts.
We also invite everyone to join us at our Annual Conference 2025: Positioning Crafts in the Contemporary Economy on 4 September 2025 in Oslo, Norway and online.
We warmly invite crafts organisations, craftspeople and more to follow our journey and explore how you can be part of the growing network shaping the sector’s future.
