The European Theatre Convention (ETC) is a network of European public theatres founded in 1988 with the aim to promote contemporary drama theatre, to support the mobility of artists and to develop artistic exchange throughout Europe and beyond, whose objectives are to: • Create, protect and promote the art of theatre and its linguistic diversity in Europe and beyond • Act as transnational theatre collaboration network to foster cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue • Act as platform for professional exchange, development and capacity building of theatre makers in an international context • Act as representation and advocacy network of the public theatre sector on EU, Member states and local level In order to achieve our objectives, the mission of ETC’s work is based on three major strands: The ETC is an artistic theatre collaboration network developing international collaboration and artistic mobility projects with a focus on new contemporary theatrical formats to reach wider audiences promoting access to culture, based on multilingualism, artistic education and European citizens in theatre. The ETC is a professional platform for theatre makers that encourages intercultural dialogue, capacity building and the exchange of best practices, organizes meetings, invests in education and training opportunities and initiates research and publications in the fields of drama and theatre. The ETC is an advocacy network representing the European public theatre sector on a political level and nurturing long-term structured relationships with European political institutions but also in view of being a reference point for audience development activities for European Theatres. The ETC represents the interests of public theatres in the official European policy decision -making process. With high quality creative and innovative theatre projects the ETC seeks to reaffirm the role of theatre, its intrinsic subversive force to shape a European public sphere, offering access to live arts and culture for all generations and strands of society. Connecting theatre makers and the citizens of Europe, the ETC employs theatre to support intercultural dialogue and with its activities, to develop intercultural competence in our increasingly diverse societies in a hyper-competitive world and ETC elaborates new methodologies for audience development strategies. To respond to these challenges the ETC’s work is to represent and structure the sector of European theatres and participates in the exchange of good practices and good ideas between European institutions, member states and civil societies and individual artists.