BRITAIN
Name: Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growth:
The 2015 Report by the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value.
Year: 2015
Description: The report is the result of a one-year investigation undertaken by a diverse group of cultural leaders, supported by academics from the University of Warwick. The report argues that the Cultural and Creative Industries are one entity, an ecosystem, which is becoming increasingly important to British life, the British economy, and Britain’s place in the world. It calls for joined-up policy making and a national plan for the sector that maximises cultural, economic and social return. The Commission’s analysis throws down a sharp challenge to all those who value how culture enriches people’s lives and makes a range of recommendations as to how we can ensure everyone has access to a rich cultural education and the opportunity to live a creative life.”
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Name: ‘Impact’, ‘value’ and ‘bad economics’: Making sense of the problem of value in the arts and humanities by Eleonora Belfiore, Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, UK
Year: 2015
Description: Questions around the value of the arts and humanities to the contemporary world and the benefits they are expected to bring to the society that supports them through funding have assumed an increased centrality within a number of disciplines, not limited to humanities scholarship. Especially problematic, yet crucial, is the issue of the measurement of such public value.
This article takes as a starting point a discussion of the ‘cultural value debate’ as it has developed within British cultural policy: here, the discussion of ‘value’ has been inextricably linked to the challenge of ‘making the case’ for the arts and for public cultural funding. The paper discusses the problems with the persisting predominance of economics in shaping current approaches to framing articulations of ‘value’ in the policy-making context. It concludes with a plea for a collaborative effort to resist the economic doxa, and to reclaim and reinvent the impact agenda as a route towards the establishment of new public humanities.
Weblink: http://ahh.sagepub.com/content/14/1/95.full.pdf
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Name: UNDERSTANDING the VALUE and IMPACTS of CULTURAL EXPERIENCES: A LITERATURE REVIEW. Prepared for the Arts Council England by JOHN D. CARNWATH & ALAN S. BROWN
Year: 2014
Description: Over the past decade, there has been a lively debate over the many ways in which cultural activities add value to the lives of individuals and to society as a whole. Researchers and writers have produced a somewhat bewildering array of scientific studies, evaluations and policy papers advancing various conceptual frameworks and terminology for describing the value and impacts of arts and culture.
This review, commissioned by Arts Council England, examines two related branches of this literature: 1) how individuals benefit from attending and participating in cultural programmes and activities; and 2) the creative capacities of arts and cultural organisations to bring forth impactful programmes. By and large, the focus is on English language literature published since the turn of the millennium.
Name: ‘Open Call for Evidence’ from the Warwick Commission
Year: Evidence submission period: 16 December 2013 to 15 October 2014
Description: The Commission brings together fifteen high profile UK artists, policy-makers, business leaders and economists. They will explore how England should invest in and engage with its cultural life, question how we define cultural value, evaluate the role of creativity in skills, education and the economy, and investigate the emergent global trend of large-scale investment in culture from rising economic powers. The national conversation on the future of cultural value requires a comprehensive understanding of the current challenges, opportunities and the best ways of dealing with the former whilst maximising the latter. In order to lead to a constructive debate and fresh policy thinking, such understanding needs to be based on insightful research and trustworthy evidence. This evidence includes original industry research and both quantitative and qualitative data, from market reports, statistics and budgets to audience surveys, examples of personal experience and commentaries that illustrate how the worlds of the arts and culture function.
Weblink: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/research/warwickcommission/futureculture/jointhedebate/callforevidence
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Name: The value of arts and culture to people and society – an evidence review
Year: March 2014
Description: The value of arts and culture to people and society – an evidence review, gathers information that shows where the impact of the arts is felt, whilst also identifying any gaps to help shape future research commissions.
-- Name: This England: How Arts Council England uses its investment to shape a national cultural ecology
Year: February 2014
Description: Responding to the significant debate on regional funding that has been taking place in the sector over the past months, the Arts Council England have now published This England: How Arts Council England uses its investment to shape a national cultural ecology.
This England restates the principles on which we invest in arts and culture in order to preserve and enhance a National Cultural Ecology across England, and contextualises the current strategy. Four years into Englands ten-year strategy, the figures in this report show that the investment decisions are having an effect, as well as outlining what England have yet to accomplish to achieve their mission to make great art and culture available to everyone in England.
Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/research-and-data/england/
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Name: ‘Cultural value gone wonky?‘ Digital Reading Network blog post by ‘Simon’
Year: 16 December 2013
Description: ‘it is becoming increasing difficult to talk of anything – love, for example – from a space outside of commodity culture’
Weblink: http://www.digitalreadingnetwork.com/cultural-value-gone-wonky/--
Name: ‘Cultural value – again,’ Digital Reading Network blog post by ‘Simon’
Year: 6 December 2013
Description: ‘The hoary old chestnut roasting on this December’s open critical fire is cultural value. Much loved by those wishing to instrumentalise the humanities, cultural value appears in European funding cfps (last year’s British AHRC had such a call) as a strategy to identify sources of utility through public-funded humanities projects.’
Weblink: http://www.digitalreadingnetwork.com/cultural-value/
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Name: ‘Intrinsically cultural value: a sociological perspective’ a mini essay by Daniel Allington
Year: 5 December 2013
Description: Art for art’s sake. L’art pour l’art. What does this idea mean for cultural value? It means understanding the value of culture as intrinsically cultural. As not reducible to any other kind of value, that is: not financial value, of course, but not social value either. Not even the emotional value attached to the great (or minor) work by its creator’s many (or few) fans. No. Intrinsically cultural value, if it exists, can be none of those, which are non-cultural species of value applied to cultural artefacts. If it doesn’t exist, this does not mean that culture has no value, but that any value it does have must be of a kind that other things might possess in greater measure. What is this value, then – supposing that it exists?
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Name: ‘An analysis of the macroeconomic contribution of the arts and culture and of their contribution through spillover effects’
Year: May 2013
Description: This is a report by Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) on the contribution made by the arts and culture to the UK’s national and regional economies.
The report includes not just an analysis of the ‘direct’ contribution of the arts and culture as measured by macroeconomic indicators like GVA, employment and household incomes, but also an examination of the ‘indirect’ contributions made by the arts and culture to the wider economy and to other sectors. These spillover impacts come, for example, through tourism, improvements in national productivity and through the role of the arts and culture in developing skills, nurturing innovation and fostering growth in the commercial creative industries. Quantitative data drawn from these sources, and from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), were used to provide the ‘business economy’ review and the macroeconomic impact assessment of the arts and culture industry featured in the report. The more qualitative intelligence gleaned from our secondary research and from the survey responses of and in-depth interviews with industry participants were used in the analysis of spillovers.
Weblink: http://www.cebr.com/reports/arts-and-cultures-economic-contribution/
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Name: ‘ImagineNation – the case for cultural learning’
Year: 2011
Description: The Cultural Learning Alliance believes that the arts and heritage have the power to transform young people’s lives. This document sets out how, and why. In it we argue that the knowledge, skills and experience made possible by the performing and visual arts, by museums, libraries, archives, and by heritage organisations are essential to young people’s development. This cultural learning takes place formally in schools and colleges, and informally in the wider world where the arts and heritage offer children and young people opportunities to express themselves and their ideas and values. They are encouraged to explore other cultures past and present, and are inspired to contribute to the arts and heritage that will be created and enjoyed in the future. Children and young people who have access to our cultural riches will be better equipped to contribute to our economic prosperity and social harmony.ImagineNation includes key statistics, facts, quotes and evidence which you can use to make your own arguments to colleagues and policy makers across the learning and cultural worlds.
-- Name: The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Cultural Value Project
Year: 2012
Description: In launching this two-year Cultural Value Project, the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) wishes to make a major contribution to how the UK thinks about the value of arts and culture to individuals and to society. Recent years have seen many attempts to capture that value in straightforward ways, not least in order to make the case to governments for public funding, but none have commanded widespread confidence. The Cultural Value Project seeks to establish a framework that will advance the way in which UK society talks about the value of cultural engagement and the methods by which they evaluate that value.
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Name: The Connectivity of the Arts and Humanities: New Analysis of Missing Links
Year: 2012
Description: This research examines the role of the arts and humanities in the UK economy. It provides evidence on the connectivity of the arts and humanities, enhancing their understanding of knowledge exchange, the Creative Economy and cultural capital. This brings the multiple connections of the Creative Economy- between arts and humanities research, cultural institutions and the creative industries- into one study. The survey is being conducted by the Centre for Business Research (CBR) at the University of Cambridge as part of a research project on the Connectivity of the Arts and Humanities: New Analysis of Missing Links. The research is supported by the AHRC. Principal Investigators: Alan Hughes and Michael Kitson Analysts: Anna Bullock and Isobel Milner.
Weblink: http://www.cbr.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/project1-35.htm
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Name: Economics and the cultural sector: can they achieve a more diplomatic relationship?
Year: 2012
Description: Just because valuation of the arts is difficult, and resistant to the tools of neo‐classical economics, does not mean that policy‐ makers should not explore the interactions of markets and culture more broadly. New forms of dialogue between culture and market economics are imaginable. By Dr. Dave O'Brien.
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Name: Cultural Value initiative
Year: Ongoing since 2012
Description: Blog website with research presentations as well as reflection pieces and other resources and presentations from the workshop, Cultural Value: Developing the research agenda” was a 2-day residential workshop organised by Dr Eleonora Belfiore that took place on the 11th and 12th of June 2012 at the University of Warwick.
• Dr Eleonora Belfiore, Associate Professor in Cultural Policy, University of Warwick: ‘Addressing the cultural value challenge: the research perspective’.
- Rachel Smithies, Director of Research and Knowledge and Dr James Doeser, Senior Officer of Research and Knowledge, Arts Council England: ‘Cultural Value and Public Value: The Arts Council since 2008’.
- Dr Dave O’Brien, City University: ‘Proving the value of culture: on evidence, quality and the problem of commensuration’.
- Dr Claire Donovan, Reader in Assessing Research Impact and AHRC/DCMS Fellow, Brunel University: ‘‘Priceless?’ A holistic approach to ‘measuring’ cultural value’.
- Prof. Gayle McPherson, Chair in Events and Cultural Policy, University of West of Scotland: ‘The Co-Creation of Public Policy: the use of mega‐events to add cultural value’.
- Dr Cécile Doustaly, Senior Lecturer, Université de Cergy-Pontoise, France: ‘Researching cultural value: the French approach’.
- Jean McLaughlin, Executive Director, Penland School of Craft, North Carolina, US: ‘Making the Case For Engagement at Penland School of Crafts’.
- Dr Andy Miles, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Research on Socio‐Cultural Change (CRESC), University of Manchester: ‘Yartys, Bean Counters and Non Users: Class and the contest over value in cultural policy’.
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Name: Culture and Sport Evidence programme(CASE) is a joint programme of strategic research led by the Dept of Culture, Media and Sport(DCMS) in collaboration with Arts Council England, English Heritage and Sport England
Year: Ongoing since 2012
Description: The CASE programme strengthens the UK's understanding of how best to deliver high quality culture and sporting opportunities to the widest audience, bringing valuable benefits to society.
Vision: to directly influence culture and sports policy development through the development of a high-quality, cross‐cutting, social and economic evidence base for UK sectors.
Objectives: to understand how far current research and data can address the fundamental questions of value and what drives people to engage in culture and sport; understand what types of data, analysis, research and resources CASE should provide to influence the policy agenda; influence policy research by producing useful data resources and tools for others to mine use CASE data to inform indicators and targets in future spending reviews become a recognised source of high quality culture and sports policy research.
Weblink: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121204113822/http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/research_and_statistics/5698.aspx
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Name: Taking Part
Year: 2010 - 2012
Description: The Taking Part Survey collects data on many aspects of leisure, culture and sport in England, as well as an in-depth range of socio-demographic information on respondents. The need for consistent, high quality national data on engagement with culture and sport led to DCMS and three partners (Arts Council England, English Heritage and Sport England) commissioning the Taking Part survey, the first of its kind to provide data of this quality.
Weblink: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121204113822/http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/research_and_statistics/4828.aspx
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Name: The Art of the Possible- using secondary data to detect social and economic impacts from investments in culture and sport: a feasibility study
Year: 2011
Description: Executive Summary, Review of impact research. Assessment of approaches. Assessment of the Guggenheim’s effects on overnight stays. Assessment of the Guggenheim’s impact on Bilbao’s business structure Availability of comparable data in the UK. Conclusions on the using the approach to assess the impact of C&S to 3.8.2 Impact of stadium announcements. Conclusions.
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Name: Understanding everyday participation- articulating cultural values
Year: Since 2010
Description: The project originated in a cross university and cultural sector consortium of academic and sector researchers that came together at an AHRC Connected Communities workshop in Birmingham in December 2010. The research proposes a radical re‐evaluation of the relationship between participation and value, intended to re‐orientate both academic thinking and policymaking. They are interested in what lies behind, and is in the process obscured by, the assumptions of orthodoxy. They argue that the current focus on certain types of participation to the exclusion of others misses opportunities to understand the variety of forms of cultural participation and their cultural, economic, political and social, consequences. Their aim in this project was therefore to develop a programme of research for exploring the meanings and stakes that attach to ordinary, ‘everyday’ participation- to investigate how hidden, marginalized and forgotten value forms generated by mundane, informal practices and engagements might transform our understandings of the creative economy and the role of cultural participation in the creation and life of communities.
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Name: Measuring the value of culture: a report to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport(DCMS)
Year: 2010
Description: There has been recognition, both within UK central government and in parts of the publicly funded cultural sector, of the need to more clearly articulate the value of culture. As a result DCMS has established a partnership to co-ordinate a programme of work on measuring cultural value, and to provide leadership. Measuring the value of culture: a report to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is the outcome of the first phase of this programme. The report explores the debates around cultural value, considering the meaning of culture and the reasons why valuation of culture is such a difficult task. The report considers several solutions to the problem of how to value culture, giving an overview of techniques from environmental and health economics, arts and humanities research and recent studies on subjective wellbeing. Overall the report concludes that, in the context of HM Treasury’s Green Book, the economic valuation techniques supported by the Green Book should be used by the cultural sector when articulating its value to central government. By Dr. Dave O'Brien.
Name: Culture of Innovation
Year: 2010
Description: Seemingly a paradox exists in the arts: creativity and novelty lie at the heart of all artistic endeavor, yet funders call on arts and cultural organisations to be more innovative. Working with one of the world's leading cultural economists and two of the UK's premier cultural institutions, the report proposes a framework for innovation that can be used by both arts funders and arts organisations. It describes the rich ways that arts and cultural organisations innovate in audience reach, push out artistic frontiers and create economic and cultural value. By Dr. David Throsby and Dr. Hasan Bakshi.
Weblink: http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/Culture_of_Innovation100610.pdf
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Name: Supporting Excellence in the Arts: from measurement to judgment
Year: 2008
Description: In July 2007 James Purnell, the Secretary of State for Culture, asked Sir Brian McMaster, former Director of the Edinburgh International Festival, to undertake a review to report on:
- How the system of public sector support for the arts can encourage excellence, risk-taking and innovation
- How artistic excellence can encourage wider and deeper engagement with the arts by audiences
- How to establish a light touch and non-bureaucratic method to judge the quality of the arts in the future
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Name: The Value and Values of Culture
Year: 2006
Description: Proof and evidence. Diversity and distinctiveness. Cultural literacy. By Charles Landry.
Weblink: http://www.charleslandry.com/downloads/The%20Value%20and%20values%20of%20culture.pdf
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Name: Never Mind the Width, Feel the Quality
Year: 2005
Description: ‘Museums and galleries collect more visitor data today than ever before but how much of it gives us real insight into visitors motivations, behaviour, experiences and responses? And how much of it simply ticks a box on a funding form? Commissioned by some of the UK’s leading institutions, including Tate, The British Museum, V&A and the Imperial War Museum North, Morris Hargreaves McIntyre has tackled this insight deficit head on. Our aim was to devise meaningful measures that can actually inform museum and gallery policy and programming. But while we have based these on new models of visitor understanding, this is no academic theory. We’ve devised practical methodologies and tools that measure things previously thought un-‐measurable. We would like to begin a debate about how we measure the impact and value of museums and galleries. We offer this report as a starting point for that debate’ By Morris G., Hargreaves J., and McIntyre A.
Weblink: www.lateralthinkers.com/nevermindthewidth.html
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Name: Capturing the Public Value of Heritage
Year: 2006
Description: Key individuals from the heritage community and beyond considered the concept of public value, and how it might be applied to heritage. The concept of public value – what the public values – may at last be one of the keys to a better future for England’s heritage.
Weblink: http://www.helm.org.uk/upload/pdf/Public-‐Value.pdf
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Name: Cultural Value and the Crisis of Legitimacy
Year: 2004
Description: Why culture needs a democratic mandate. This Demos publication explores the differing concerns regarding culture and the arts between politicians and policymakers as opposed to professionals and the public. It examines how the points of view held by these groups are incompatible, and suggests creating a different alignment between culture, politics and the public ‐ ultimately resulting in "a democratic mandate from the public". The report followed the 2003 conference 'Valuing Culture', held by Demos, AEA Consulting, the National Gallery and the National Theatre. By John Holden.
Weblink: www.demos.co.uk/publications/culturallegitimacy
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Name: Capturing Cultural Value: how culture has become a tool of government policy
Year: 2004
Description: Cultural organisations and their funding bodies have become very good at describing their value in terms of social outcomes. Tackling exclusion, increasing diversity and contributing to economic development are all familiar justifications in grant applications. But by talking in functional terms about the value of culture, cultural organisations have lost the ability to describe their real purpose – producing good work that enriches people’s lives. Culture now delivers government policy by other means. But there is a difficulty with the language of outcomes: artists and institutions do not see themselves as creating outcomes. Cultural experience is the sum of the interaction between an individual and an artifact or an experience, and that interaction is unpredictable and must be open.
There is equally a difficulty in talking about the intrinsic value of culture, or ‘art for arts sake’. In today’s world it sounds patronising, exclusive and undemocratic. There is now a growing view within the cultural world that new and convincing methods must be found to validate public funding. This report shows how alternative ways of valuing culture are possible, by drawing on disciplines as diverse as brand valuation by accountants and the language of sustainability used by environmentalists. By John Holden.
Weblink: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/culturalvalue
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Name: Government and the Value of Culture
Year: 2004
Description: Britain's Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell has released a personal essay examining the relationship between Government and the cultural sector. By Tessa Jowell, British Culture Secretary, May 2004.
Weblink: http://www.ifacca.org/publications/2004/05/31/government-‐and-‐the-‐value-‐of-‐culture/
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Name: Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion Project
Year: 2003‐6
Description: The inquiry proposed to resolve questions and provide the first-ever systematic survey of cultural tastes in the UK. It did so by means of a national household-based survey of cultural tastes, knowledge and activities correlated with a wide range of social variables (class, education, gender, ethnicity, occupation etc.) This was supplemented by a qualitative study of the subjective aspects of the relations between culture, class, gender and ethnicity on the part of a selection of the respondents to the national survey. The relevance of the household to such concerns will figure prominently. The project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council(ESRC) for three years from March 2003 to March 2006. It was conducted in association with the work of the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-cultural Change (CRESC) located at The University of Manchester and jointly managed by The Open University.
Weblink: http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/cultural-‐capital-‐and-‐social-‐exclusion/project-‐publications.php
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Name: Valuing Culture Conference
Year: 2003
Description: Valuing Culture was an event held at the National Theatre Studio on 17th June 2003, organised by Demos in partnership with the National Gallery, the National Theatre and AeA Consulting. Prompted by the need for a new concordat to be formed between cultural organisations and their funders, the event questioned whether the balance is right between meeting targets for the instrumental needs of funders across a range of social policy areas, and the recognition of the inherent and less quantifiable intrinsic value of cultural activity.
The proceedings included speeches from the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell, and Lord Stevenson, Chairman of Pearson and HBOS and Former Chair of the Tate. Estelle Morris, then newly appointed Minister for the Arts, also made a brief contribution.
Weblink: http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/valuingculturespeeches
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Name: ‘Measuring Culture: Collecting statistics to prove the 'use' of the arts has been largely useless…’
Year: 2002
Description: ‘Measuring Culture: Collecting statistics to prove the 'use' of the arts has been largely useless’, says the editor of Cultural Trends by Sara Selwood, editor of Cultural Trends. The gathering of evidence about the impact of the arts has assumed centre-stage in cultural policy. The rise of statistics has paralleled an extension of government control over the arts, and the tendency to value culture for its 'impact' rather than its intrinsic value. From 1998, New Labour attempted to bring the cultural sector in line with its manifesto commitments, particularly around social inclusion. And the Department for Culture's sponsored bodies are expected to produce evidence of their contributions to that agenda. But much of the data produced is methodologically flawed, and says more about policy intentions than about actual impact. Until the collection and analysis of data is carried out more objectively, and evidence gathered used more constructively, it could be argued that collecting data has been a relatively spurious exercise.
Weblink: http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000006DBAF.htm
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Name: Francois Matarasso
Year: Ongoing
Description: Blog. ‘My writing, research and work in community art all rests on the belief that everyone has the right to create art and to share the result, as well as enjoy and participate in the creations of others. Shaping your own cultural identity – and having it recognised by others – is central to human dignity and growth. If people can’t represent themselves culturally how can they do so in any other way, including politically? If people are only imagined and portrayed by others, how can they be full, free and equal members of society? And yet, in every society, people’s access to culture is very uneven. Those who identify with dominant cultures have no difficulty creating and promoting their values. Others, passively or actively denied cultural resources, platforms and legitimacy, remain on the margins. My work engages with those issues through research, support for cultural groups and writing. This site is gradually becoming home to books, research, essays and talks; all the material is freely available for download’ – Matarasso.
Weblink: http://parliamentofdreams.com/about/