Civita Report 2017 Calls for Improved Data on Cultural and Creative Industries

The 2017 Civita Report highlights persistent challenges in measuring Italy's cultural and creative industries (CCI). Despite growing recognition of CCI as an economic cluster, data collection remains inadequate. The report criticizes reliance on ATECO codes, which are too generic and fail to capture cross-sectoral activities. Many companies registered under cultural codes actually operate in non-cultural sectors, while others provide cultural services under non-cultural classifications. The report calls for a shared supplementary methodology—beyond official statistics from ISTAT, EUROSTAT, and UNESCO—to track real business evolution. Simple checks like verifying company websites could reveal how firms shift activities over time. The analysis, authored by Stefano Monti of Monti&Taft, argues that better data would show a more accurate picture of the sector's health, including service expansion and market diversification. The report references the EU's Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor and the ESSnet-Culture framework, noting that current UNESCO data, based on the 2009 Framework for Cultural Statistics, suffers from classification gaps.