twitter YouTube LinkedIn

Capturing the value and impacts of a year of culture



A night time scene of Leeds.

We are excited to announce that we are working with LEEDS 2023 as their research partner in collaboration with The Audience Agency. Together we’ll explore how the year-long cultural programme impacts the varied and diverse communities of the city. As part of this collaboration we’ll be hosting a fully-funded PhD.

The Audience Agency will be leading the evaluation, designing an approach to help understand the immediate and longer-term value for residents, communities and the creative and cultural sector of the city and region and for its visitors. Alongside this, we will undertake a whole range of qualitative research working with artists, audiences and in communities, to understand the impact of culture on people’s lives and how it affects their mental and physical wellbeing as well as their attitudes to arts, culture, heritage and sport.

We will also work with LEEDS 2023 and The Audience Agency to embed our new co-created Evaluation Principles and create a robust framework for evaluation, really getting under the skin of the desired outcomes including its ambition for every person in Leeds to benefit from the year of culture.

New PhD opportunity – closing date 6 June 2022

An integral element of the partnership is a new and fully-funded PhD opportunity from September 2022. We will be supervising a dedicated PhD to further explore the impact of cities of culture through an in-depth case study of LEEDS 2023. This has been fully funded by the Arts, Humanities and Cultures Faculty of the University of Leeds.  Find out more in our open call for candidates.

Ben Walmsley Director at the Centre for Cultural Value says:

“We are excited by the ambition of LEEDS 2023 and really looking forward to continuing our successful long-term collaboration with The Audience Agency by leading on the research aspects of the evaluation.”

LEEDS 2023’s ambition is to deliver a transformational year of creative experiences connecting and benefiting people now and into the future. The planned programme will celebrate and transform the city’s identity locally, nationally and internationally – creating a lasting legacy of economic and social impact.

Kully Thiarai, artistic director of LEEDS 2023 says:

“We are so excited to work with The Audience Agency and the Centre for Culture Value over the next three years to redefine what ‘value’ means in relation to culture and everyday creativity. We know that investing in culture goes beyond its economic impact, and it is brilliant that Leeds can play a leading role in taking forward the incredible work these organisations are doing to build a shared understanding of the differences that arts, culture and heritage make to people’s lives.”

Related news

A group of people talking in a circle at Rising Arts Agency's 'This Is The Work' event, surrounded by shelves of books at Bristol's Bookhaus bookshop.
Rising Arts Agency - This Is The Work (Photo by Olu Osinoiki)
News

This Is The Work: reflecting on new research findings about power in partnerships

How do power imbalances manifest in creative partnerships - and how do we remove the impact of these imbalances from ...
Pam Johnson is dressed in black and sitting on a table against a white background. To the site is a plant in a terracotta pot.
 
News

Talking cultural policymaking with Pam Johnson, Leeds City Council

Policymaking can seem to many a mysterious process. Meanwhile, the term 'policymakers' can conjure up ideas of a homogeneous group ...
Performance of 12 last songs. Colourful confetti in the foreground obscures the image.
Quarantine's 12 Last Songs, at HOME Theatre Manchester. Photo by Chris Payne.
News

In Arts Professional: The Beauty Project

Artist Sarah Hunter, physicist Rox Middleton and philosopher Lucy Tomlinson spotlight what they learnt from spending a year exploring the ...
Two people using a digital touch screen together in a museum
 
News

Watch online: Evaluation for Arts, Culture and Heritage Workshop

Have you taken our new free-to-access online course, Evaluation for Arts, Culture and Heritage: Principles and Practice? Did you miss ...
Profile of a person in a bookshop. They are wearing a bright yellow hoodie and holding a camera on a tripod.
Photo by Olumide Osinoiki/Rising Arts Agency.
News

In Arts Professional: Power in partnerships

In their collaborative research project, Euella Jackson and Jess Bunyan of Rising Arts Agency have been exploring the unequal balance ...
A Beauty Project Lab book open on two pages. One page has yellow and pink circles and writing by a research participant. The other page is green with the word Beauty.
The Beauty Project. Photo by Lisa Mattocks.
News

Revealing the beauty of using lab books for audience research

Can returning to pen and paper provide more in-depth audience research data? The research team behind The Beauty Project, one ...






Keep in touch,

Sign up to our newsletter