IRELAND
Name: Cultural value, measurement and policy making
by D. O'Brien
Year: 2015
Description:
No matter what the national context, the question of how to understand the impact of government programmes, particularly in terms of value for money, has emerged as a complex problem to be solved by social scientific management. This article engages with these trends in two ways. It focuses on the UK to understand how these tools and technologies are used for valuing objects and practices. By showing the rationality for using these techniques for understanding culture, it creates a link between studies of cultural policy and broader questions facing the arts and humanities. The article’s second contribution is to our understanding of the role and function of arts and humanities by showing, in the British example, how a true understanding of the value of culture is impossible without the disciplines and fields that are currently peripheral to both government social science and, more broadly, higher education in the UK.
Weblink: http://m.ahh.sagepub.com/content/14/1/79.full.pdf
Name: The Arts in Irish Life, a significant report commissioned by Arts Audiences for the Arts Council from Kantar Media (UK) Ltd
Year: 2014
Description: The report looks at different elements of engagement with the arts; attendance at arts events, participation in artistic and creative activities, motivations around the arts, and overall attitudes. In addition to updating attendance information which is published each year, the report also updates some of the elements of The Public and the Arts, the 2006 study commissioned by the Arts Council.
Weblink: http://artsaudiences.ie/2015/01/the-arts-in-irish-life-2014-published/
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Name: NCFA/RedC Survey
Year: May 2014
Description: Survey commissioned by the NCFA and carried out by RedC The survey reveals that two-thirds of the public believe that local authorities should provide financial support to fund the arts.
The survey also found that over half of those who endorse funding by local authorities, believe that the level of support provided should exceed 50 cents per person per week.
Weblink: https://ncfa.ie/uploads/NCFA_Local_Authority_arts_funding_research.pdf
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Name: New Arts Council research indicates that Ireland is a highly creative nation
Year: 04 October 2013
Description: The Arts Council released new research which indicates that Ireland is highly engaged with the arts as a nation and most people associate the arts with major economic drivers such as tourism and foreign direct investment.Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/news/news.aspx?article=a55c2e54-07cd-4e37-a54d-b68d6071dd86
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Name: Arts In Education Charter
Year: 2013
Description: This Charter places new responsibilities on Government Departments, agencies, cultural institutions and arts organisations in terms of providing and promoting arts education to children and young people. The charter will see organisations like the Arts Council, the National Cultural Institutions, the Colleges of Education and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment working with both Departments in order to bring the arts into the classroom and learners into the institutes for the arts.
Weblink: http://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Policy-Reports/Arts-In-Education-Charter.pdf
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Name: Arts Audiences Attendance Report 2012-13
Year: 2013
Description: Each year, Arts Audiences publishes information drawn from the Target Group Index (TGI) Repblic of Ireland research. The report is published with two main aims:
- provide an overall picture of audiences for the arts in Ireland and to provide arts organisations with figures for attendance at different artforms. This is of value to all arts organisations and it assists the public bodies involved in making a case for the arts.
- provide audience insights for arts organisations to help with marketing decisions.
The report from 2012-13 is available for download:
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Name: Here and Now Report
Year: November 2013
Description: This piece of research represents a snapshot of visitors at each of the galleries taking part, all within the third quarter of 2013 . The findings presented here are the average results across the 12 participating galleries. However, an in depth analysis demonstrates that there are some characteristics shared by most or all galleries, but that there are also discrete differences which make each gallery unique from their peers – often linked to situational circumstances such as the physical location of the gallery. These nuances have been presented to the participating galleries in detail with accompanying recommendations on how to implement the findings of the analysis.
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Name: Early childhood arts
Year: October 2012
Description: Following a roundtable discussion involving Irish early childhood arts and education practitioners in October 2012, the Arts Council identified some fundamental steps to be taken at a research level in order to inform policy and provision in the rapidly growing area of early childhood arts. These were: a mapping of the early childhood landscape in terms of public policy and provision in order to aid orientation within the field, especially in terms of where and how the arts might 'fit'; a scoping and audit of current Irish practice in this domain; securing an expert international perspective highlighting the key issues and the rationale for the importance of this work, and setting out the evidence for why this is an area that requires the attention of public policy makers. To that end, the Arts Council commissioned three independent perspectives: an overview of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) policy and provision in Ireland; a background paper on the role of the arts in early childhood learning and development; and an international perspective on best practice in Early Childhood Arts. In addition, in partnership with Irish arts organisations and practitioners, eight documented examples (in various formats) of Irish work have been produced. The three independent perspectives are available to download from the following link.
Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/areas-of-work/early-childhood-arts.aspx
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Name: Art-Youth-Culture: FYI
Year: March 2010
Description: Art-Youth-Culture: FYI was an Arts Council initiative which brought together more than 60 young people between the ages of 15 and 23 to discuss their participation in cultural life and the arts with their peers and key policy-makers during three days of arts-based workshops, discussions, and meetings. Using a variety of artistic media including music, theatre, film and visual arts, young people explored their right to participate in cultural life and the arts, as enshrined in the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the U.N. Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights. The young people shared their experiences, concerns, and ideas with key policy makers and cultural providers through a day-long series of round-table discussions and artistic presentations, the themes and format of which were determined in advance by the young participants. The event took place over 3 days in Dublin. 35 representatives from key public agencies and government departments whose activities impact on young people’s experience of arts and culture attended the event. You can download the full report here:
Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/areas-of-work
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Name: Theatre Forum Marketing Benchmarking Project
Year: 2012
Description: This audience benchmarking study takes place annually. 2012 marks the seventh year of this research. 43 venues and 16 festivals participated in 2011. This is the only publicly available, comprehensive overview of funding trends from The Arts Council. It covers every organisation in receipt of annual revenue funding going back to 2003 and compares trends by art form and individual organisation.
Weblink: http://www.theatreforumireland.com/
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Name: Arts Attendance in Ireland
Year: 2012
Description: The report contains vital information on audiences for the arts in Ireland, by region and by artform to inform arts organisations in their planning and marketing. The report this year (2012) contains more comparative information, so that we can look at trends over time. The report is drawn from the Target Group Index report. Arts attendance reports are also available from 2009-11.
Weblink: http://artsaudiences.ie/reports-2009-2011/
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Name: Here and Now: an Overview. An exploration of gallery visitors in Ireland.
Year: 2011
Description: A Pilot Study by Audiences NI and commissioned by Arts Audiences (Irl). This work brought five participating galleries in the Republic of Ireland – The Butler Gallery, The Glucksman, The Model, Royal Hibernian Academy and Temple Bar Gallery + Studios – together to develop a collaborative research project for analysis and benchmarking, with a view to gaining insight into how audiences are engaging with the visual arts in the Republic Of Ireland and how this information can be harnessed to produce practical outcomes.
Weblink: http://www.audiencesni.com/download/files/HereNow20121.pdf
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Name: The Arts, Who Benefits? A New Pact Conversation on the Arts, Inclusion, Equality and Human Rights.
Year: By Ed Carroll, a Director of Blue Drum and Project Leader, 2011.
Description: ‘There are now conversations going on about how to reset Ireland during this time of troubles. Many take place out there among ordinary people who don’t make history, but who have to suffer it. What good is culture and art here? What role and responsibility can culture and art play there?’ – Carroll.
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Name: Assessment of the Economic Impact of the Arts in Ireland – an update report.
Year: 2011 (2010, 2009 also available)
Description: This report seeks to establish an evidence-driven evaluation of the economic impact of the arts as an input into wider economic policy in 2011. It represents an update of Indecon's previous independent assessment of the economic impact of the arts in Ireland undertaken in 2008 and a more overview analysis undertaken in 2010.
Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/publications/research_publications.aspx
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Name: Cultural Omnivores in Ireland in 1994 and 2006: A Discrete Choice Analysis
Year: 2009
Description: This study addresses the effects of the changing social characteristics on cultural preferences of the cultural omnivores in Ireland between 1994 and 2006. Focusing on characteristics of the groups of individuals who attend different cultural events, we explore how individual preferences manifest themselves in choices made about spending the free time in cultural activities, and what individual-specific characteristics influence these choices. We distinguish between cultural univores, omnivores, and gluttons, the latter being individuals who attend many cultural events across genres many times in the year. Our focus on the characteristics of cultural omnivores allows for a look at the democratization of cultural tastes over a period of enormous economic growth and social change in Ireland. We question the hypothesis that high-brow culture is consumed by snobs and demonstrate that the boundaries of tastes across social stratification have been extended and blurred. At the same time, we find overall lower interest in high-brow art in 2006. The paper examines attendance at 15 types of arts events which coincide in the 1994 and 2006 survey: theatre, opera, musical, variety show & pantomime, film, classical dance, ballet, traditional dance, classical concert, jazz concert, rock & pop concert, traditional & folk music, country & western music, literature & poetry reading and art exhibition. We then group these events into four major clusters of events, and divide them into the independent choice groups made by respondents. We use logistic regressions (multinomial logit) to estimate the likelihood of attendance of cultural event by people with different socio economic characteristics, and ordinal logit to estimate the likelihood of the intensity of their participation.
Weblink: http://grupo.us.es/aeep/WORKSHOP_EGC_2009/Sevilla_09_Gradev.pdf
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Name: Accounting for taste: an examination of socioeconomic gradients in attendance at arts events. ESRI working paper, No. 283, by Pete Lunn and Elish Kelly.
Year: 2009
Description: Lunn and Kelly critically examine and empirically test the hypothesis that the strong socioeconomic gradients characterising attendance at arts events result from similar gradients in preferences for the arts, in line with existing theories of demand for the arts derived from orthodox consumer theory.
Weblink: https://www.econstor.eu/dspace/bitstream/10419/50015/1/594063019.pdf
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Name: Arts, Education and Other Learning Settings: a research digest
Year: 2008
Description: This body of research also underlines the fact that the multiple skills and intelligences required to engage in the arts are transferable and extend into many areas.
Weblink:
http://www.artscouncil.ie/Publications/Research_Digest.pdf
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Name: Points of Alignment – The Report of the Special Committee on the Arts and Education.
Year: 2008
Description: A report arising from the Special Committee on the Arts and Education; the committee was established by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, in tandem with the Minister for Education and Science and consisted of nominated representatives from the arts and education sectors with special knowledge of the intersections between the two fields. The report focuses on arts‐in-education provision in Ireland and makes five key recommendations to improve such provision.
Summary Guide also available.
Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/publications/research_publications.aspx
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Name: In the Frame or Out of the Picture: a statistical analysis of public involvement in the arts
Year: 2008
Description: This publication outlines in greater detail the factors that influence participation in the arts in Ireland. It sets out new findings with regard to the effects of a variety of socio-‐economic and demographic facts on people’s involvements in the artistic life of the community. People with lower educational attainment, social class and income are many times less likely than their fellow citizens to attend a range of arts events, including plays, art exhibitions, music events, and even mainstream films and street theatre. The report also shows that women are over twice as likely as men to attend plays, musicals, art exhibitions and classical music events and to read novels and poetry. Author(s): Lunn, Pete / Kelly, Elish. Dublin.
Weblink: http://www.esri.ie/publications/latest_publications/view/index.xml?id=2501
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Name: The Arts, Cultural Inclusion and Social Inclusion. National Economic and Social Forum (NESF), Report No.35.
Year: 2007
Description: NESF report on how the arts contribute to cultural inclusion and social cohesion and how this can be enhanced further. While much of this report relates to participation in the arts, and cultural inclusion in general, the Project Team for this report decided early on that in relation to the detail of institutional practice and policy just three main areas of the arts, namely libraries, the visual arts and theatre (both professional and amateur), would be examined. Summary and Full report available.Weblink: http://www.nesc.ie/en/publications/publications/archived-documents/nesf-publications/nesf-reports/nesf-35/
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Name: The Case for Elitism by Emer O'Kelly
Year: 2007
Description: One of a series of pamphlets on the value of the arts written by Emer O'Kelly. These pamphlets are intended to provoke discussion and to focus attention on the crucial role the arts can and do play in our lives as individuals, as members of diverse communities and as part of our wider society.
Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/publications/research_publications.aspx
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Name: The Public and the Arts
Year: 2006
Description: A study commissioned by the Arts Council of Ireland to provide up-to-date information on the behaviour and attitudes of Irish people to the arts. The study was undertaken by Hibernian Consulting with Martin Drury, independent arts consultant in 2006, and it draws on a survey of 1,210 people at 100 locations around Ireland. The study looks at what people think about the arts, and their behaviour in relation to attendance, participation, and consumption of the arts.
Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/publications/research_publications.aspx
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Name: Study of the socio‐economic conditions of theatre practitioners in Ireland
Year: 2005
Description: This study was commissioned by the Arts Council at the end of 2004 and undertaken by Hibernian Consulting. The centerpiece of the study was a survey of Irish theatre practitioners. Its aim was to assemble an evidence base on the economic and social conditions of Irish theatre practitioners and to do so in a way that would provide baseline data to allow future comparative studies to be undertaken. This executive summary presents key findings of the study.
Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.ie/en/publications/research_publications.aspx
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Name: Auditoria: a review of planning, programming and provision for performing arts venues in Ireland
Year: 2004
Description: In November 1999, the two Arts Councils (North and South) set up the Auditoria Project, a data and analysis based survey of the performing arts venues. Auditoria assesses the current state of theatres and performing arts centres, identifies areas for action and details recommendations for both Councils and their respective Governments about funding priorities and criteria for the future.
Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.ie/Publications/auditoria_report.pdf
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Name: Irish Festivals, Irish Life: celebrating the wealth of Ireland’s festivals
Year: 2004
Description: This independent report was commissioned from Fiona Goh Consulting by AOIFE, the Association of Irish Festival Events, to provide an overview and analysis of the Irish festivals movement. As the first study of its kind, the research process was designed to provide a baseline study of the scale and activities of festivals in the Republic of Ireland in 2002, with specific emphasis on core issues including finances, volunteering, external relations, development and health & safety. In addition to the findings of the postal questionnaire, which were mainly quantitative, a number of festivals participated in research interviews to explore key issues in more depth as case studies. The research provides a unique snapshot of the country’s festivals and illustrates a vibrant and evolving sector run by committed and professional individuals, many of whom work voluntarily.
Weblink: http://www.aoifeonline.com/uplds/Goh_Final_Report.pdf
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Name: The Public and The Arts: a survey of behaviour and attitudes in Ireland
Year: 1994
Description: The Arts Council of Ireland, commissioned an independent national survey of The Public and the Arts from a research team based in the Graduate School of Business of University College Dublin. The result is a benchmark piece of research on the arts in Ireland. The study was conducted in the context of major initiatives in public policy in the arts: the establishment of a Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht and the development by the Arts Council of a three-year plan to develop the arts in Ireland. One of the main objectives of the study is to provide a comparison with the data collected in the 1981 survey of audiences, acquisitions and participation. In 1994, information was gathered on a more comprehensive range of live arts events, categories of purchase of arts products and types of amateur activities.
Weblink: http://www.artscouncil.ie/Publications/The_Public_and_The_Arts.pdf