The «European Capital of Culture» initiative offered dazzling programmes at the RUHR.2010 and Marseille-Provence 2013 locations; these programmes also claimed to have cultural-political sustainability. The study examines to what extent the concepts of the two cities contributed to processes of cultural policy transformation at the locations in terms of sustainable governance structures in the cultural sector. It also shows how intrinsic identities affected a culturally shaped transformation of the two sites. The need to reform the ECoC initiative is also discussed.

Kristina Marion Jacobsen studied music, German and European studies in Heidelberg-Mannheim, Hamburg and Berlin, and completed her doctorate in cultural studies at the University of Hildesheim. She worked as a research associate in the German Bundestag and subsequently as the managing director of the European Studies Programme of the three major universities in Berlin. At the Department of Cultural Policy at the University of Hildesheim, she co-founded the European Capital of Culture Laboratory (ECoC LAB), within the framework of which she wrote this study, among other publications.