The present document is a guide to makers’ mobility, part of the Makers’ eXchange (MAX) project. MAX is co-funded by the European Union and coordinated by the European Creative Hubs Network in collaboration with Fab Lab Barcelona, UPTEC and Makery, actors with wide networks of makers and creatives and significant background, expertise and knowledge of the cultural and creative industries.

The present guide has two main goals. The first one is to map and explore the existing landscape of mobility schemes for makers in Europe. The mapping exercise highlights the current trends and gives an overview of the types of opportunities already out there, which may represent a model to emulate or improve for the next mobility programs to come.

The second goal is to offer a set of tools and data that represents a robust guidance and transferable methodology on embedding makers’ mobility schemes for value creation across Europe. This knowledge has emerged from the mapped mobility schemes as well as from a series of impact case studies and of interviews with stakeholders, who shared their insights on the main challenges and needs related to mobility for makers.

With this guide, you will explore three main sections. The first one debunks who the makers really are and why mobility is so important to them. The second one corresponds to the makers’ mobility mapping, with an overview of mobility programs, through the lenses of specific mapping metrics. The last one brings up a series of recommendations on how to embed makers’ mobility in an inclusive and effective way.

The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the European Creative Hubs Network and its partners and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

The reuse of this document is authorised under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed, provided that appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated.