FAQs - CCL Switzerland 2024

There are no fees for participating in the CCL Switzerland programme.

Accommodation and meals will be provided to successful applicants at the programme venue between the evening of Sunday 3 March to lunch on Friday 8 March.

Participants will be responsible for covering their own travel costs to and from the venue.

A limited number of stipends of up to CHF 2.000 is available to support freelancers who would otherwise be unable to participate. Financial support can be requested as part of the application.

We may also be able to support with childcare costs for participants unable to participate otherwise. Please include details in your application.

Mattli Antoniushaus is fully wheelchair accessible. A parking space for disabled guests is in front of the entrance. Two rooms with shower/toilet are set up for guests who are dependent on a wheelchair.

We are committed to ensure to remove barriers to participation wherever possible. If you have any access requirements please let us know in advance so we can work with you to make the necessary adjustments. Please include information in your application and/or contact cclswitzerland@juliesbicycle.com.

Given that we want to make the most out of our limited time together, the days will be long. Final timings will be confirmed, but we can expect to start around 09:00 in the morning and end at 18:30, with evening activities planned on some days. We build in breaks every 1.5-2 hours, and 1.5 hours will be given for lunch every day to give everyone an opportunity to rest.

If you have any concerns or questions, please email cclswitzerland@juliesbicycle.com.

The residential programme and CCL Network activities will be delivered in English. While different members of the facilitation team speak other languages including German, Italian, and French, we will not be offering live translation and we would expect participants to contribute to sessions in English. If you are thinking of applying to the programme, we ask that you keep this in mind and assess for yourself whether you feel you will be able to participate.

We are closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation.

We understand that different people have different risk thresholds in relation to COVID-19 and would like to make CCL Switzerland as inclusive a space as possible.

In that spirit, we encourage all participants to take a rapid COVID self-test within 24 hours before the programme starts and recommend wearing wear masks when travelling to the event on public transport. Masks and rapid lateral flow tests will be made available on-site. If you have specific concerns, you can include these in your application as part of the question about whether you need anything to support your participation.

Spaces will be ventilated with regular opening of windows where possible, and some sessions will be held outside weather permitting.

All participants who, prior to the event, have symptoms of a respiratory infection, have a high temperature or do not feel well enough to carry out normal activities will be asked to stay at home. Any participants and facilitators who present symptoms during the programme will be asked to self-isolate until they have had a negative self-test, and will be asked to wear masks if rejoining the group.

In the event of a postponement of the whole programme due to new or shifting COVID-19 regulations, participants will have the option of rolling over their registration to new dates. Alternatively, we may also re-assess the possibility of delivering CCL in a digital format.

We want to bring together people who are committed to making a difference. What shape a ‘CCL Action’ takes can be decided by each participant based on their resources, interests and ability: they can be for colleagues within organisations, colleagues in the wider sector, collaborators from other sectors, or the general public. Actions could take place in person, or digitally – the format is up to the participant to determine based on their skills, preference, community, and creativity. From blog posts to major public art commissions, workshops to policy papers: what counts is that there is a commitment to share learning.

In order to support CCL Actions with additional resources, participants will be able to apply for one of five CHF 5.000 ‘CCL Action’ seed grants.

Applicants must be Swiss citizens, or verifiably permanent residents of Switzerland and regularly involved in artistic/cultural activities and productions in Switzerland.

Students are generally not eligible to apply unless you are doing a PhD and already have some form of established existing artistic practice or involvement in cultural creation. Please email us at cclswitzerland@juliesbicycle.com for any clarifications.

You do not need to be a specific age or have a particular level of experience to attend the CCL programme, but we are looking for a commitment to making change. Before applying you need to consider how the programme will enable you to make a greater impact through your work, specifically in relation to climate change and the challenges it poses to culture, leadership and society.

Yes, if your current role involves significant work with the cultural/creative sector, for example working with networks, funding bodies, commissioning, communications, education and other sectors related to the cultural field. You will need to show how your particular experience fits with our criteria when applying, and to evidence your commitment to the cultural sector in the longer term.

Yes. This programme focuses specifically on leadership in the context of climate change, through the lens of culture and creativity. It is specific, but will be explored in relation to broader leadership challenges relevant to the cultural sector.

Yes, although places are limited and depending on the number of applications received, we may prioritise a wider spread of participants. This should be taken into consideration when making an application.

No. Places are limited, and applications will be evaluated on an individual basis.

Yes, we encourage self-employed applicants.

Yes, but we would expect to see a track record of work in the arts or creative sector.

The CCL programme will provide you with new knowledge, skills and insights on cultural action on climate change and connect you with a network of international change-makers. The experience will enable you to design and implement solutions relevant to your organisation, which will support organisational resilience as well as provoke new ways of thinking about what creative engagement with climate change looks like.

As part of the CCL Switzerland programme, we are pleased to be able to offer up to five CCL Action grants of CHF 5.000 each to support programme participants to develop their projects and work.

A short application will be shared after the CCL residential with further information. Proposed activities may take any shape – it could be an event, artwork, exhibition, publication, research, or any other format you can think of – as long as you can explain why this approach is the best way to achieve your aims. We want to support alumni to undertake projects that fit into their personal Creative Climate Leadership journey and will enable them to unlock future projects, resources, and work in this field.

The proposed activity may develop a new project, or significantly develop an existing project in a way that would be impossible without a grant. Activities will need to be delivered between June 2024 to January 2025. Grant recipients will need to provide a short project evaluation report and a financial report detailing how the funds were spent, at the latest 30 days after the completion of the activity.

Please note: we will not be able to offer CCL Action seed grants if:

• the same part of the submitted project is already receiving funding from other federal bodies (e.g. Federal Office of Culture, Presence Switzerland, Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation);
• funding is intended to cover infrastructure and equipment costs, as well as the costs of operating cultural facilities, archives and collections.

We don’t currently have a specific commitment to run another CCL Switzerland, however we are always looking to expand our network of CCL courses with partners in different regions.

If you are unable to participate in this residential programme but want to be kept up to date with future CCL opportunities, please sign up to the Julie’s Bicycle newsletter – and sign up to the Vert le Futur newsletter for other training opportunities and events specific to climate action in the Swiss cultural sector.

If you are a funder or interested in partnering with Julie’s Bicycle to develop a CCL for your region or community, please contact ccl@juliesbicycle.com.

Yes. You can see the application questions directly on the application form here.

You can also download them as a document here. However, please note we will not accept applications in Word/PDF format unless previously agreed. Please email cclswitzerland@juliesbicycle.com to discuss.

Yes, if you would prefer to submit a video application, please record a video of max 5 minutes addressing the questions in the application form, and send this as an MP4 file via WeTransfer to cclswitzerland@juliesbicycle.com with the subject line ‘CCL Switzerland Video Application’ along with your Personal Details.

If you would like to discuss submitting an application in another format, please email cclswitzerland@juliesbicycle.com.

We are committed to making the course as accessible as possible. If you need alternative versions of the application form, or any help completing it, please contact the team on cclswitzerland@juliesbicycle.com.

Participants do not need to do any work prior to attending the course, other than preparing a short session to share their skills, knowledge, or experience with the other participants. However, an important part of CCL is active participation.

Julie’s Bicycle delivers Creative Climate Leadership programmes with different funders and partners. More than 200 creative climate changemakers working in 30 countries have participated in programmes in the UK, Benelux, Canada, USA, Slovenia, Australia, Sweden and Scandinavia.

CCL Switzerland will be delivered by Julie’s Bicycle in partnership with Vert le Futur, initiated and funded by Pro Helvetia and Stiftung Mercator Schweiz.

Julie’s Bicycle is a pioneering not-for-profit based in the UK, with over 15 years’ experience mobilising the arts and culture to take action on the climate, nature, and justice crisis. Founded by the music industry in 2007 and now working across the arts and culture, JB has partnered with over 2000 organisations in the UK and internationally. Combining cultural and environmental expertise, Julie’s Bicycle focuses on high-impact programmes and policy change to meet the climate crisis head-on. We exist at the heart of a thriving informal network of people who share our vision, supporting others on their journey, and helping to catalyse new projects at the intersection of culture and climate.

Vert le Futur is an association committed to making the Swiss cultural sector and events industry more climate-friendly and inclusive – and thus more sustainable. How? By combining environmental and cultural expertise and bringing together a wide variety of actors with equally diverse backgrounds and cultural practices across Switzerland and its different language regions. We exchange knowledge, make best practice approaches visible and develop new initiatives in collaboration with artists, cultural actors, institutions, and policymakers.

Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, supports Swiss artists and cultural organisations. Pro Helvetia within the sector Innovation & Society supports activities and projects which promote the knowledge transfer concerning ecological topics in the arts.

Stiftung Mercator Schweiz focuses on the topics of democracy, diversity and climate, addressing current issues of digitalisation, promote learning for the future and strengthen civil society. Stiftung Mercator Switzerland wants to enable social innovation and trigger developments for an open, equal and ecologically sustainable society by initiating and funding groundbreaking projects and by supporting broad alliances. Through cultural and creative approaches, we want to promote an engagement with and further development of social issues and enable new, courageous, surprising approaches.

The CCL Switzerland programme will be led and delivered by the Julie’s Bicycle team, in partnership with Vert Le Futur.

About the facilitators:

Alison Tickell (she/her), Founder and CEO of Julie’s Bicycle. Alison established Julie’s Bicycle in 2007 as a non-profit company helping the music industry reduce its environmental impacts and develop new thinking in tune with global environmental challenges. JB has since extended its remit to the full performing and visual arts communities, heritage and wider creative and cultural policy communities. JB is acknowledged as a leading organisation bridging sustainability with the arts and culture. Originally trained as a cellist, Alison worked with seminal jazz improviser and teacher John Stevens. She worked for many years at Community Music and at Creative and Cultural Skills where she established the National Skills Academy. She has been on many advisory and awarding bodies including Observer Ethical Awards, RCA Sustainable Design Awards, D&AD White Pencil Awards. She has been on the boards of the Music Business Forum, Live Music and Sound Connections.

Farah Ahmed (she/they), Climate Justice Lead at Julie’s Bicycle. Farah supports the delivery of events and the Creative Climate Justice programme, developing resources, training and advocacy, connecting environmental, racial and social justice, and creative activism. Their interests lie in how art can centre stories and solutions from the frontlines of climate impacts, and how we can imagine and enact decolonial and anti-capitalist ways of being. Farah is also co-founder and facilitator of Diaspora Futures, a reflective space for people of colour to centre collective care in the face of the climate crisis. She was on the sounding board for Arvae, a site-specific experiment in collaborative work between artists, scientists and regional environmental experts in Arosa, Switzerland, and was on the oversight board for Art For The People, a citizen’s assembly on arts and culture in Coventry. She is an alumni of the peer-led accelerator programme Huddlecraft and is also an Arts Emergency mentor, supporting young people into careers in the arts.

Chiara Badiali (she/her), Music Lead at Julie’s Bicycle. Chiara joined JB in 2012 and works across programmes and events, with a focus on getting the music industry up to speed when it comes to embedding climate action in their activities and an interest in the intersection between cultural and climate policy. She has co-designed the Creative Climate Leadership programme and learned with groups of change-makers in Wales, Slovenia, Canada, the UK, Benelux, Sweden, and Scandinavia. She sits on the Vision2025 outdoor events climate action steering group and has contributed to the IMPALA Environmental Sustainability taskforce for independent music companies across Europe, and the Music Declares Emergency and LIVE Green working groups in the UK. Chiara studied natural sciences at university and has previously worked in cultural PR, live music promotions, and for music and arts festivals. As a Swiss national, she is excited to be ‘coming home’ as part of the CCL Switzerland team.

Zamzam Ibrahim (she/her), Creative Climate Leadership Associate at Julie’s Bicycle. Zamzam Ibrahim is a Climate Justice Activist that joined JB in 2022. She was previously based in Brussels as the Vice President of the European Students Union. She is a co-founder of Students Organising for Sustainability UK, and Vice Chair and Founder of the Muslim Leadership foundation. She’s a finance graduate from the University of Salford, Manchester, were she started her work becoming the first Black Muslim women to become the President of her union, and went on to becoming the President of the National Union of Students in the UK. She currently serves as an Advisor for the Union of Justice. She’s been the student representative for almost a decade leading work on a fully funded and just education system to tackling societal injustices, leading campaigns from; climate justice to tackling racial injustice. Zamzam has been a leading voice on tackling climate injustice more specifically in the education system, diverting away from a Eurocentric lens in which the climate crisis is currently portrayed.

Laura Giudici (she/her), CCL Switzerland Project Manager at Vert le Futur. Laura joined VLF in 2022 and is primarily concerned with sustainability in the visual arts and museum sector and takes care of the relations with the cultural scene in Italian-speaking Switzerland. She studied art history and cultural management and, over the past 15 years, has worked for various cultural and artistic organisations in different regions of Switzerland. Since 2017, she has been working for the Studio Mirko Baselgia as exhibition, documentation and communications manager. Alongside her activities as an independent curator, author, educator and lecturer, from 2021 to 2022 she has worked as project manager for an art and cultural centre in Graubünden. Over the past 6 years, the relationships between visual arts, ecology and sustainability have occupied a central role in her research and activities. Laura is also a VKKS Mentoring Programme mentor, supporting art historians into their careers.

Stefanie Günther Pizarro (she/her), CCL Switzerland Project Manager at Vert le Futur. Stefanie studied law, journalism, acting and cultural management and has been working in the cultural sector, for theatre and film, for over 15 years. She has been working on the issue of sustainability in culture for several years and is involved in practical projects at regional and national level through various associations (Vert le Futur, Reflector, fOrum culture). In her work Kunst, Kultur und Klimaschutz, Ökobilanzen für die Darstellenden Künste (Art, Culture and Climate Issues, environmental footprint of the cultural sector) (University Basel, 2021) she provides an inventory of initiatives, best practice examples and measures that have emerged and are being used across Europe and Canada in recent years. Stefanie currently works as a journalist and moderator for the regional television station TeleBielingue and as a freelance project manager for Vert le Futur. The CCL Switzerland project and the collaboration with Julie’s Bicycle represent the culmination of a desire to adapt existing tools, pass on knowledge and set up a sustainable network to ensure that future generations have access to culture in the broadest sense.

Please note: the final facilitation team may change.