The Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovators (YCI Forum) is a ten-year program launched by Salzburg Global Seminar in 2014. Its goal is to connect and empower a critical mass of talented change-makers across the world who work through the culture and arts sector to shape a more creative, just and sustainable world.

Each year the Forum brings together a new group of fifty cultural innovators and creative practitioners, selected from participating city or country “hubs” with the active support of local partner organizations. The artistic disciplines they represent range from the visual and performing arts, literature, and cultural heritage, to foods, fashion, architecture, and design. The residential program at Schloss Leopoldskron is designed to help participants develop the dynamic vision, practical skills, and global networks they need to thrive in new ways, together with their organizations, causes and communities.

Year on year, the YCI Forum is growing and nurturing a dynamic international network that catalyzes an expanding range of local and cross-border collaborations. The Forum represents a major commitment by Salzburg Global Seminar to fostering creative innovation and entrepreneurship for more inclusive and sustainable development. Focused on human capital and leadership development, the Forum aims to build a more vibrant and resilient culture and arts sector equipped to advance positive social change agendas and equitable community transformation worldwide. 

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Forum components include the one-week annual program in Salzburg combining theory and praxis, with capacity building sessions focusing on:

• Human-Centered Design Processes;
• Communicating the Value of Your Work;
• Leadership and Values.

Outstanding participants from previous years are often invited back as facilitators/resource specialists at later sessions and regional events to assure continuity, communication and exchange of best practice across the Forum. The YCI Forum helps participants to create and develop hubs on all continents to share learning, scale up projects, and magnify the impact of the network created in Salzburg at the regional and community levels. YCI hub teams take the initiative to convene mini-sessions, workshops and public events and become a local resource for emerging cultural innovators.

The YCI Forum aims to build collaborative networks for human capital and leadership development within the cultural sector.

Each annual YCI cohort is comprised of approximately ten expert facilitators and fifty young cultural innovators between the ages of 25 and 35 from around the world. The group is balanced in terms of gender, discipline, and geographic representation. Participants are chosen through a highly competitive application and nomination process, to ensure outstanding quality and diversity of professional knowledge and experience within the Forum.

Most participants come from “YCI hubs” that Salzburg Global Seminar has been developing with partners in cities and regions around the world. These hubs – which form the core of the YCI Forum’s activities – now include: Adelaide, Australia; Athens, Greece; Baltimore, USA; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Canada; Cape Town, South Africa; Detroit, USA; Malta; Manila, Philippines; Memphis, USA; Nairobi, Kenya; New Orleans, USA; Mekong Delta: Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand; Plovdiv, Bulgaria; Salzburg, Austria; Seoul, South Korea; Tirana, Albania; and Tokyo, Japan. 

• Be 25–35 years of age.
• Be proficient in English the working language of the YCI Forum.
• Have at least 1–3 years of professional experience in the cultural sector, creative industries, and/or at an arts organization or institution.
• Want to become an active member of the YCI global network, and be prepared to commit time, energy, and resources to sustaining these.
• Aim to create social change and strengthen the position of the arts and cultural institutions within your community.
• Demonstrate creativity in approach to work, openness to innovation and risk-taking, action-orientation, and entrepreneurial inclination.
• Have a cross-sectoral approach to work and demonstrate an interest in building cross sectoral alliances/partnerships beyond the cultural sector.
• Exhibit passion, enthusiasm, and leadership potential.