It might sound a bit dry, but we truly are absolutely thrilled to be announcing the kick-off of our new project: a blueprint for a national cultural data observatory. Working in partnership, as often, with Centre for Cultural Value and MyCake, with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC part of UK Research & Innovation), we’ll be exploring how knitting together multiple datasets can help us to demonstrate and develop the socio-economic impact of the UK’s arts, culture and heritage sectors in new and compelling ways. It’s a project we’ve been thinking about for years. Every time we come across an amazing initiative which deserves to be celebrated and scaled. We think about it whenever when we look at the unequal distribution of resources and audiences. And when we are trying to make the case for a new cultural centre, boost funds for an existing company, or demonstrate the incredible health or education benefits an organisation is making in its community.
As project leads Ben Walmsley at University of Leeds and Patrick Towell for The Audience Agency say in their blog… the problem of fragmented and hard-to-compare data matters to us all … it makes it harder to justify and evidence the social and economic impact of cultural activities in a compelling way. This limits investment, hampers innovative policymaking and inhibits collaboration between public and private sectors. It also leaves the ACH sectors vulnerable to public funding cuts.
It isn’t just about getting funding or political or policy attention. It’s about ensuring that everyone – regardless of where they live – has access to cultural experiences and creative opportunities. It’s also about mapping what the cultural and creative sector is doing, and the raw materials that make it tick – the amazing people, key facilities, vital knowledge, creative works - plays, books, designs, artworks and more.
Everyone who helps to make the sector thrive needs the same good quality intel – to make the best decisions for the sector and for the benefit of the public.
Pulling together and joining up research from the diverse sources that hold this data is a complex job. We’ve been developing small-scale versions and trialling prototypes for a while, but now we have the chance to scope something of real scale and potential, in the form of a central, national data exchange or observatory.
See the official announcement here.
Read more about the Making Data Work project
