The Culturelink Network celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. To mark this occasion, we are organizing the Third World Culturelink Conference under the title Networks - The Evolving Aspects of Culture in the 21st Century, to be held from 13 to 15 November 2009 in Zagreb, Croatia.

The conference is envisaged to bring together Culturelink Network's members, researchers, professionals, and many others who perceive networking as one of the most intriguing phenomenon of contemporary culture.

The Third World Culturelink Conference will aim to investigate the role and relevance that cultural networks hold for cultural development. A retrospective overview of the cultural networks phenomena in the past 20 years will pose as grounds for debate on new perspectives of cultural networking in the 21st century. Special consideration will be given to issues regarding the position of cultural networks within cultural policies structures, as well as to the effective usage of innovative ICT and networking applications that significantly develop the modes and scopes of activities of cultural networks. The event will include discussions on the promotion and affirmation of cultural diversity and intercultural communication through networking processes and will closely look at case studies from all regions of the world, thus providing comparative examples and experiences on a global level.

Conference languages are Croatian, English, French and Spanish.

Looking forward to greeting you in Zagreb!

The Culturelink Team

PRELIMINARY CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
Session 1: Twenty Years of Cultural Networking an overview of Culturelink Network's history in the context of the emergence of cultural networks "when, what, how, why" - the role of supranational bodies in founding cultural networks (UNESCO, the Council of Europe, European Union etc.) the effects of networking on institutional culture, civil society, cultural and arts organization, arts and cultural education networks as visibility providers and providers of open communication space for networking communities cultural networks - the issues of processes and outputs

Session 2: Effects of ICT and Digital Culture on Networking Dynamics how digitalization has been changing the networking environments and practices the effects of ICT and digital culture on networks, de-territorialization, linking of the global and the local, wider accessibility and openness web 2.0 and web 3.0; impacts on networking practices in culture

Session 3: Cultural Networks and Cultural Policy social relevance and implications of cultural networks networks as tools/media for innovative approaches to cultural diversity and intercultural communication is the de-institutionalisation of cultural networks responsible for the status of their non-existence in cultural policy is their non-national outline and orientation making them peripheral to nationally oriented cultural policies innovative approaches to cultural policy making

Session 4: Evolving Networking Culture networking trend - is it going to last (as phenomenon that arose in the information age) continuity or durability of networking effects - what happens when networking becomes an obsolete part of reality (critical point of view) the emergence of a networked identity © 2009 Culturelink, Network of Networks for Research and Cooperation in Cultural Development

We invite the submission of papers to be included in the Third World Culturelink Conference programme. Paper abstracts should thematically correspond to the themes and topics listed in the preliminary conference agenda below. Conference participants interested in holding a paper/presentation at the Third World Culturelink conference, should comply with the following requirements: all prospective speakers must submit a presentation proposal and a short CV presentation proposals should be given a precise title that falls well within the scope of the chosen programme theme proposals should be submitted in the form of a written Abstract or Executive Summary on not more than one page (approx. 500 words) all proposals should be submitted for revision by 15 July 2009 to clinkconf@irmo.hr.