Philipp Dietachmair

looks back to more than fifteen years of experience in the field of strengthening and connecting cultural creators and their organisations across European borders. He works as Programme Manager for the European Cultural Foundation (ECF) in Amsterdam, where he is responsible for the development of cultural and social innovation programmes with the EU Neighbourhood regions.

Since the late 1990s, Philipp has been especially acquainted with the Balkan region, where he started his work in the field with coordinating higher education development projects for post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina and organising cultural events in Sarajevo. Since joining the ECF in 2002, he has successfully designed and implemented a large variety of capacity development and policy reform processes with new cultural initiatives in Ex-Yugoslavia, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Turkey and the Arab Mediterranean countries.

Together with partners from Berlin, Philipp has created the renowned Tandem cross-border cultural collaboration programmes. By forming cross-border Tandems, hundreds of cultural managers inside and outside the European Union have since 2011 connected with peers from abroad, and professionalized their organisations' capacities towards reaching international standards. Philipp currently also coordinates a global cultural leadership programme for the new EU Cultural Diplomacy Platform.

Philipp has been involved in a number of field studies and publication projects that analyse the role of art organisations, citizens and cultural innovation processes in socio-economic development and international collaboration. In 2017, he has co-edited 'The Art of Civil Action' for Valiz Publishers in Amsterdam.