Briefs for business transformation and policymaking

Despite the documented cultural and economic value of craft, current categorizations of data regarding crafting organizations are far from adequate. Classifications that prove effective in identifying conventional economic activities often fail when applied to craft. The focus of the present document is on NACE and national equivalents – ATECO, SNI, and Dansk Branchekode DB07 - for Italy, Sweden, and Denmark, respectively. Given its nature, craft ends up being formally considered part of industrial and mass-produced manufacturing sectors. Hard to be confined within exclusive definitions, largely conducted by micro-enterprises operating informally, and more defined by the process rather than the final product, craft falls within the crevices of current classification systems. 

Problematically, inadequate identification of craft activities results in underperforming policies that are incapable of understanding the extent of the phenomenon of interest and precisely target craft organizations and their needs. Moreover, from the crafters' perspective, policies and regulations without adequate classification end up misfitting and hampering their activities. 

The deliverable’s purpose is twofold: on the one hand, to underscore flaws in official classifications and databases and outline guidelines for the project's partners to constitute a robust database despite the limitations of official data sources; on the other hand, to propose a series of policy recommendations precisely addressing the flaws underscored during the data collection process. The document is thus so structured: 

• Section 2 presents an overview of the main mapping exercises conducted on a European level. The review is undertaken to gain a broader understanding of the data architecture regarding craft activities, comprehend their limits, and explore how policymakers have addressed them so far. 
• Section 3 follows, presenting the guidelines we elaborated to navigate the available data and compensate for their gaps, including a working definition of craft to be adopted by Hephaestus partners. In addition to the reviewed documents and fieldwork, an indispensable element the guidelines lean on is found in the relationship with key members of the ecosystem to adapt structural deficiencies to local opportunities. The section concludes with some structural solutions to minimize the necessity of a dedicated explorative and mapping effort when seeking reliable data on craft in a given ecosystem. 
• Section 4 indicates the expected deadlines for each ecosystem to collect and share craft organisations and occupational data. 
• Section 5 anticipates the policy recommendations that will follow the completion of the current deliverable course of action.