Congratulations to Martin Simcik who has just taken a position as a trainee in the European Union, working with Commissioner Jan Figel, who is responsible for Education, Training, Culture and Youth.

Martin, a visiting researcher from Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia, spent several months at the University of Oregon in 2008 taking classes in the Arts & Administration Program and working with Dr. Patricia Dewey on his PhD research exploring community cultural planning in the United States to inform his dissertation on “Arts Management in Local Perspective: Design & Implementation in Slovakia.”

Martin says that the time he spent in Oregon, “… first and foremost, helped me to tune my dissertation thesis. I can hardly imagine finishing my thesis without this wonderful experience in Eugene. I really enjoyed taking part in all the classes as well engaging in out of class discussions. I can only wish that my stay lasted longer.”
As a trainee in Commissioner Figel’s cabinet, Martin reports that he is free to choose to work on any topic that may seem interesting to him. Martin says, “There is an ‘open door’ policy here and I have been enjoying my first week talking to the members of the cabinet and learning about their agendas. Local Cultural planning remains my primary field of interest and that is the reason why the European Year of Creativity and Innovation is one of the most interesting projects for me. There are, however, some new initiatives as a response to the global financial crisis. One of them is a Communication on University-Business Cooperation which objective is to reduce barriers between universities and enterprises, enhance the relevance of curricula and increase mobility. These initiatives are to be discussed in the following weeks but any larger policy will probably remain a challenge for the next commissioner.”

Martin’s primary project of interest, The European Year of Creativity and Innovation, aims to raise awareness of the importance of creativity and innovation for personal, social and economic development; to disseminate good practices; to stimulate education and research, and to promote policy debate on related issues. Go to this link to learn more http://create2009.europa.eu/about_the_year.html.