A significant part of European citizens still rarely engage in cultural activities, yet it acquires a growing and more urgent relevance to achieve a better and fairer distribution of opportunities to take part in cultural life. This objective is related to how cultural organizations create engagement with their audiences. A new demand of skills to face the new challenges of cultural democracy is arising from the sector, which is lacking specific competences related to promoting access and cultural participation. The ADESTE project is focused on a new professional profile which is increasingly needed in the cultural sector in Europe: the Audience Developer. In cultural organizations this profile, with an integrative vision and a cross-organizational role, will deal with the audience engagement and building, active spectatorship and participation in a strategic manner. The project aims to support cultural organisations and practitioners to face the big challenges of building wider audiences, deepening engagement and increasing accessibility to arts and culture.The project consortium is made up of seven partners in 5 different European countries, 2 international partners from India and the United States and 5 associate partners.The partners are working together on various strands of activity:• Pooling resources and expertise• Identifying the skills required of people working in audience development• Mapping and collecting audience development best practice• Designing and testing formal, informal and innovative training methods for audience development in line with the needs of the cultural labour market• Promoting cooperation and exchange between different stakeholders through a pan-European and cross-sectorial approachADESTE has researched and codified a new European occupational profile in the fields of arts and culture: those who are building wider audiences, deepening engagement and increasing accessibility to arts and culture.The ADESTE (Audience DEveloper: Skills and Training in Europe) project is funded by the European Union’s Lifelong Learning Programme, Leonardo Da Vinci – Development of Innovation.