KKA as an Innovative and Sustainable Organisation

Gerhard Kowař

In the autumn of this year KulturKontakt Austria is celebrating its twentieth anniversary. Established in 1989 as a coordination centre linking artists, cultural institutions and commercial organisations, it was expanded only one year later through the integration of the new “Eastern Fund for Cultural Affairs”.

To this core area of activity devoted to giving support to young artists from the “new democracies”, KKA added, in 1994, the area of “educational cooperation with Eastern and South Eastern Europe”, which had arisen out of a service department for Eastern Europe that had previously been part of the Ministry of Education.
The establishment of KKA in the wake of the political and social upheavals in Europe was a consequence of political foresight and insight in recognising the (historically legitimated) need to support the reform process in the neighbouring reform states and to help overcome the ideological division of post-war Europe. The euphoria over the “return of old neighbours” was short-lived: the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the consequences of the Balkan wars again resulted in a need for action on the part of Austria, which was directly affected by these occurrences. Here again, KKA proactively found a specific field of useful activity: the geographical expansion of its educationally and culturally relevant work to include South Eastern Europe: a successful undertaking, as Austria’s role in the Task Force Education and Youth of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe illustrates.
KKA was born, like other institutions of the 1990s, as a direct Austrian reaction to the political upheavals in Europe, and thus, for a time, carried on Austria’s “old” role as a mediator between East and West in the area of education and culture. This was a financial and strategic achievement on the part of the education ministry that was both quantitatively and qualitatively impressive and earned considerable recognition nationally and internationally. In the area of education and culture, KKA helped to overcome Austria’s former isolation on the periphery of the Iron Curtain, and opened windows and doors both to Eastern Europe and to Austria itself. The close relation between the development of the organisation and political events continued after Austria’s accession to the EU in 1995, when KKA’s European orientation was intensified, necessitating a more intensive focus on system-relevant support for Eastern and South Eastern Europe in the context of the EU accession process. The two Eastern enlargements of 2004 and 2006 represented a successful completion of one part of KKA’s original mission.

The strategic concept of co-called “concentric circles” remained valid for a long period of time: at first KKA consciously limited its work to the neighbouring countries in the (north)east and, after their EU accession, expanded its sphere of action to the western Balkans, the western region of Russia, and individual Eastern European countries in the context of the European Neighbourhood Policy (Ukraine and Moldova). Until today, the principle of setting priorities as regards concentration of funds and geographical as well as issue-oriented areas of emphasis has remained an important strategic element of KKA’s cooperation work with other countries, also in view of increasingly slender budgets, but above all due to the seriousness with which our organisation, as a small European player, works for and with our cooperation partners.
KKA was founded as a non-profit association, and grew out of a logical need to outsource various operative agendas from government administration: the growing abundance of tasks involved in cross-border educational and cultural cooperation made it necessary to find new instruments and institutions that could act flexibly in newly developing fields of activity. Meanwhile, KKA acquired expertise in a region that today (still) belongs to the economic growth markets of Europe as well as of Austria. KKA was also able to have a positive impact on Austria and often cooperated with well-known commercial enterprises in helping to introduce young artists from Eastern and South Eastern Europe to the Austrian public. Austrian educational institutions profited increasingly from reciprocal exchange in major projects initiated by KKA. In this sense, the activities of KKA were, from the beginning, not directed toward foreign countries alone, but always had a relation to Austria; KKA always acted not as a self-chosen missionary but as an instrument of serious discussion and exchange. Against the backdrop of populist reactions to EU integration, the Balkan wars and Eastern enlargement, this was not always an easy or friction-free undertaking.
When the organisations “Österreichischer Kultur-Service” and “Büro für Kulturvermittlung” were integrated into KKA in 2004/2005, their agendas were consolidated into one field of activity focussing on cultural education in Austria’s schools. KKA thereby became an important pillar of Austria’s educational and cultural landscape, with a much larger scope of activities and achievements. All at once, it was possible to create sustainable synergies between education, art and culture. The fact that education, the arts and culture have been structurally united under one federal ministry since 2007 has, moreover, considerably simplified the logistics of combining these agendas.
But we have looked back at KKA’s history long enough. The new strategic orientation of the organisation, which we developed in 2009, follows the tradition of proactive and innovative vitality that KKA has built up over years of having to react swiftly to changing circumstances. Today, KKA is a recognised centre of competence and resources for education, the arts and culture. Its geographical focuses are Austria and Eastern and South Eastern Europe. KKA supports the reforms of education systems in Eastern and South Eastern Europe, promotes young artists from the latter regions through residencies and networking in Austria, and supports cultural education in Austrian schools through specific cultural education programmes and projects. The international networking of Austrian and European institutions is gaining increasing importance in this context.
And yet: Since 1989, the times and hence the agendas of KKA have undergone constant change. Now, in 2009, we are faced with economic, social and cultural challenges that require a different approach to Europe and to Austria than what was needed only 20 years ago. EU integration and a cosmopolitan outlook are still of central importance. What is gratifying for us is that in recent years, education and culture have become major topics of discussion and central issues of European and national policies. Their value for social cohesion and international competitiveness as well as in overcoming the manifold crises of the present day is recognised more than ever. However, as a result of complex globalisation processes, increasing mobility and the pressing call for innovation, there is a need for more flexible, democratically secured and rationally justifiable regulation systems. The challenges this presents to the subsystems of education and culture are therefore urgent and demanding.

KKA will have to position itself accordingly as an innovative and sustainable organisation, in terms of new educational approaches, diversity and social participation. That also means: stronger networking with Austrian and international decision-makers; sustainable dovetailing of KKA’s work in Austria and abroad in terms of reciprocity in educational and cultural cooperation; creating platforms of international exchange within Austria itself; and finally, sustainable support for cooperation between Austrian cultural institutions and the schools. In this context, expanding the geographic spectrum to include Turkey will also be an important instrument both of bilateral cooperation and of intra-Austrian and intercultural dialogue.
We look forward to our work in the coming years.