Across the arts, culture and heritage (ACH) sectors, organisations face the same challenge: how to effectively communicate their full economic and social impact in ways that are compelling to policymakers when the data available is so often fragmented, incomplete, inconsistent and insufficiently granular.

In 2024, the Centre for Cultural Value, alongside The Audience Agency, MyCake and Culture Commons, embarked on an R&D project to investigate developing a blueprint for a National Cultural Data Observatory, with a view to addressing these issues. Supported by funding from ESRC, the project was intended “to scope and demonstrate where a significant opportunity or gap lies in the data infrastructure landscape”.

The research included consultation with almost 500 sector stakeholders, and a pilot case study working with the evaluation team at Bradford, UK City of Culture 2025, including the development of a live regional demonstrator for the Bradford district.

This new report, Transforming the Cultural and Heritage Sector’s Data Infrastructure, explores why the sector’s current data infrastructure is limiting evidence-based policymaking. It highlights the need for an independent, people-centred approach to managing cultural data on a national scale, alongside a shared data framework that makes it easier to connect and compare datasets. The report also sets out how a National Cultural Data Observatory could connect fragmented datasets and uncover hidden data.

As the project moves into its next phase, the Centre will play a key role in ensuring the National Cultural Data Observatory remains research-led and ethically grounded. Continuing to work with partners across the sector, the Centre will focus on strengthening data practices, developing ethical frameworks and ensuring that the Observatory’s tools, standards and governance structures support more meaningful, people- and place-centred evidence for policy and investment.

Download the report

Discover more about the NCDO project, next steps and sign up to the NCDO manifesto by visiting the dedicated project website.

Image credit: Barnsley Bright Nights. The Dancing Fountain by Alexis Richter. Photo by James Mulkeen.

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Supported by Research England, the programme brings together local authorities, community networks and cultural organisations to develop approaches for understanding cultural vitality rooted in local experience and priorities.

Telling the whole story of a place

Across the cultural sector and local government, there is growing recognition that existing data does not always capture how people experience and value culture in their everyday lives. Cultural Vitality Labs responds to this by putting participatory research and co-production at the core of cultural evidence practice.

Rather than starting with predefined indicators, the programme will start from local knowledge and lived experience, allowing evidence to emerge from the realities of place. The Labs will create practical, locally meaningful ways to understand a place’s cultural vitality, including recognising informal cultural activity and exploring how culture connects to wellbeing, belonging, community resilience and civic life.

Working with local partners

We will be working with local authority, cultural sector and community partners in three local areas:

• Norwich
• London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
• West Yorkshire

The Cultural Vitality Labs will create space for collaboration between local authorities, cultural organisations and communities. Partners will work together to explore what cultural vitality looks like in their area, what kinds of evidence matter to local people and decision-makers and how participatory approaches can surface perspectives often missed by traditional data collection.

While each Lab will be shaped by its local context, all share a commitment to co-production, collective reflection and practical learning. Activities will include mapping local cultural ecologies, co-designing indicators that reflect everyday cultural life and testing creative and participatory research methods. This process will support reflection on how cultural evidence is gathered, interpreted and used, and how it might better support inclusive, place-based decision-making.

Shared learning

Alongside place-specific insights, the programme is designed to generate shared learning, supporting cultural practitioners across the sector to articulate the value of their work in ways that resonate locally, while helping policymakers access richer, more meaningful evidence to inform planning and investment.

Through this programme, the Centre aims to contribute to broader conversations about cultural data and evidence in the UK, offering practical, place-based approaches to understanding what culture means to people and places, and helping shape future national strategy, including the development of the National Cultural Data Observatory.

Want to discover more about cultural vitality and placemaking? Take a look at these resources:

Understanding and measuring cultural vitality in the UK

Developing a cultural indicator suite: Interim report

Research digest: Understanding cultural vitality

Research digest: Culture and placemaking

In Arts Professional: Indicators of cultural vitality: Hope not harm

Image credit: Mafwa Theatre. Flourish. Photo by Tribe Four Films.

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Stephen Dobson and Liz Harrop share more about the Centre’s next steps after securing ‘the rare gift of stability’– thanks to confirmed multi-year funding.

Across the UK, cultural organisations are navigating tightening resources and rising expectations. Freelancers are juggling multiple roles within fragile and disconnected ecosystems. New place-based policies are reshaping local landscapes in ways that feel full of promise, yet frustratingly uneven. There is a growing demand for evidence and evaluation, but those asked to provide it are often the organisations with the least infrastructure, time or support to do so fairly or meaningfully.

Over the last six years, the Centre for Cultural Value has worked in this space: translating research into practice, making evaluation feel useful rather than burdensome, and convening conversations that help the sector reflect and adapt.

In this previous article for Arts Professional, we reflected on what we had learned. Now, we look ahead to what comes next, and how we hope to help build the systems and capacity that cultural practitioners say they most urgently need. With recently secured core funding from the University of Leeds School of Performance and Cultural Industries through to 2029, the Centre has been given the rare gift of stability.

Head of the school, Professor Jonathan Pitches, said the funding would enable the Centre to “continue to deliver much-needed work that informs cultural policy and directly supports cultural organisations, policymakers, funders, artists and researchers across the UK and internationally.” Reaching this milestone has been made possible by the transitional funding provided over the past year by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Paul Hamlyn Foundation, whose continued support strengthens our ability to plan ambitiously and collaboratively.

Our vision for the next three years

Over the past year, as we listened to organisations, policymakers, freelancers and community partners, the message was clear: people want stronger support, better data infrastructure and approaches to evaluation that are collaborative, equitable and rooted in place and the realities of cultural work. These conversations have shaped our vision for 2026–29.

Practitioners told us they want to build skills without feeling overwhelmed and develop evaluation that supports rather than stifles purpose. Policymakers emphasised the need for more robust, connected evidence, while organisations highlighted the challenge of linking everyday practice to national conversations. The next three years will focus on building the infrastructure, training and partnerships that help practitioners and policymakers collaborate, creating a sector where evidence genuinely serves people.

What has emerged is a vision grounded in practical relevance and long-term benefit. We aim to enrich lives by building an equitable, confident and sustainable cultural sector, one where creative place-shaping is community-led, robust cultural data strengthens decision-making, and resilient models of practice support a thriving future.

This refreshed vision underpins our commitment to helping organisations and freelancers develop the tools, evidence and confidence they need to navigate complexity.

A structured approach

Our vision unfolds across three intertwined areas of activity:

Creative place-shaping and community-driven development

We will continue to model approaches that illuminate new ways of understanding cultural value, including through our recently launched Cultural Vitality Labs. These labs bring practitioners, communities and researchers together on equal footing to explore how community voices can shape meaningful indicators of cultural vitality, moving beyond narrow economic or health-focused measures toward those that resonate more deeply with lived experience of culture. This work will show how cultural activity fosters resilience, especially in communities facing change.

Looking ahead, we will deepen these partnerships by developing a network of regional hubs where practitioners, researchers and communities can test new approaches to data and evaluation in real-world settings. Our aim is to create research and learning projects across the UK that help people articulate what culture means to their communities in ways that chime with residents and local decision-makers. For practitioners, this means evidence which reflects nuance, research which honours community knowledge, and practical resources which support programme design, storytelling and evaluation.

In short, it is about helping people shape the narrative of how and why culture matters, grounded in the realities of the places they know best.

Strengthening cultural data

The Centre has become a trusted source of guidance on evaluation and reflective practice. But evaluation is only meaningful when it is accessible, collaborative and grounded in people’s needs. Over the next three years, we will expand this work significantly through the development of the Evaluation Academy, a national professional development programme offering cohort-based learning, mentoring and policy masterclasses.

Learning drawn from both the Evaluation Academy and the Cultural Vitality Labs will shape the development of the National Cultural Data Observatory (NCDO), a programme that will work with the sector to establish clear data standards, ethical guidelines and responsible governance; develop tools and shared methods that support better data collection; and create accessible insights that build confidence around data use.

Working with partners across the UK, the NCDO will convene conversations and champion inclusive approaches, ensuring diverse contexts and underrepresented voices shape an ethical, inclusive and coherent data infrastructure for cultural work across the UK.

Supporting sector resilience

The Centre’s next chapter is not simply a strategy update; it is a commitment to the people who shape cultural life across the UK. We will continue to work directly with organisations to help them use research and evaluation to strengthen and sustain their work, understand what’s effective, identify what needs to shift, and explore new opportunities.

Joining the conversation

This work will only succeed if it continues to be shaped with, not for, the sector. A future shaped collectively is one where cultural value can be understood and nurtured and sustained for everyone. We invite organisations, freelancers, policymakers and researchers to join us in building this next phase.

To stay up to date with the Centre’s work join our email list and follow us on LinkedIn.

Image credit: MishMash Productions – Smile. Photo by Pamela Wraith Photography.

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Working in collaboration with The Audience Agency (TAA) and the University of Leeds’ Horizons Institute, the Centre is undertaking research activities to capture and articulate the value of LEEDS 2023 for artists, audiences, communities and the city region as a whole.

The year-long programme of culture was developed when the city’s bid to become the European City of Culture was derailed by the UK leaving the EU. Various cultural activities are happening across the city over the course of the year, including large-scale events, new art trails and community projects.

Ben Walmsley, Director at the Centre for Cultural Value, says:

With LEEDS 2023 now underway, the Centre has begun to use creative, participatory research methods to develop a robust, people-centred understanding of the programme’s impact. These insights can support legacy planning within Leeds and across the city region and inform future cultural programmes, such as Bradford 2025.

Exploring different perspectives and themes

The Centre will lead three strands of research work into LEEDS 2023:

Capturing the social value and impact

Dr John Wright, our Research Associate, will capture stories from artists involved in the programme. He will use the Centre’s dedicated Valuing Culture platform, a free online site designed to work as a living archive of cultural value.

John will explore artists’ perspectives on their professional development. He will also investigate whether artist-led activities have helped support and diversify the cultural ecosystems in Leeds, and if and how artists will continue to engage with residents and communities.

Researcher Dr Robyn Dowlen will continue her work for the Centre on understanding outcomes relating to health and wellbeing. Her research will explore whether participating in LEEDS 2023 activities – such as 1001 Stories – has led to a greater connectedness to places and spaces within the community. She will also investigate how the programme has impacted people’s and communities’ self-reported sense of happiness and wellbeing.

We will use qualitative research methods to undertake this work, including creative workshops, object handling and arts-based methods. Our Evaluation Principles will underpin our work as we seek to adopt a beneficial, rigorous, people-centred and socially-engaged approach.

Linked to this, PhD student Ava Podgorski will investigate how researchers can most effectively evaluate the social impact of cultural participation and will use “listening labs” to explore the legacy of the programme as a case study.

Exploring co-creative practices

Postdoctoral researcher Alex De Little is funded by the Horizons Institute and attached to the Centre to undertake a longitudinal evaluation of the My Leeds 2023 Neighbourhood Hosts, a community-based project which aims to work with residents across Leeds to explore their stories and culture.

Working closely with the LEEDS 2023 team, Alex will “hang out” with neighbourhood hosts and other LEEDS 2023 project participants. Using this research approach, he will explore the different co-creation processes employed to help inform the programme’s legacy planning.

Connecting policymakers with research

We will work closely with Leeds City Council and West Yorkshire Combined Authority to support the legacy implementation of LEEDS 2023 and help place the research and evaluation from the event at the heart of the region’s ongoing cultural strategy.  We will engage with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) on future funding and research for the wider UK Cities of Culture programme.

Interested in learning more about our research work around Cities of Culture and LEEDS 2023? Sign up for our newsletter to receive updates straight to your inbox.

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Making data work is a research project led by the Centre for Cultural Value and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The work brings together UK cultural sector partners, data specialists and policymakers to explore how better data can lead to better policy. The team included researchers from arts management, cultural policy, psychology and quantitative sociology, working closely with industry experts from The Audience Agency and MyCake.

At the heart of the research, we observed different and divergent protocols for data collection, collation, storage, analysis and impact evaluation across the cultural sector. These varied and excessive approaches to data management have led to a chaotic and sporadic landscape for cultural evaluation, making it harder to demonstrate impact at the level of national policy.

Ben Walmsley, Director at the Centre for Cultural Value, notes that it is now essential to evidence the true value of what the cultural sector does:

In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic and now the cost-of-living crisis, it has never been more important to understand the impacts that cultural activity and engagement have on people’s lives.

The research also focuses on the variety of voices and perspectives evident within the cultural sector. We consider the role of creative practitioners alongside the parts artists, audiences and communities play in data collection.

The report also identifies opportunities for funders, sector bodies and policymakers and explores how they might be able to improve cultural data practices.

Ben Walmsley adds:

The Centre for Cultural Value is committed to supporting the development of a more effective data infrastructure for the cultural sector. Only a rigorous, joined-up approach to cultural sector data can deliver this goal and our new report highlights some of the ways we might collaborate to achieve this.

Delve deeper into the full report, read the executive summary and find out more about the suggested next steps.

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Following on from our ground-breaking research into the impact of Covid-19 on the UK’s creative and cultural sectors, we are now pleased to publish a new report detailing 12 recommendations for policymakers.

This report has been developed alongside our policy partner Culture Commons. It seeks to translate the Centre’s findings from the original Culture in Crisis report into evidence-led recommendations, which aim to support the recovery and rebuilding of the sectors.

Ben Walmsley, Director at the Centre for Cultural Value, says:

These recommendations represent the vital step from insight to action. They seek to offer a way forward for the UK Government and devolved administrations to address the structural deficiencies within the creative and cultural sectors while maximising the life-affirming potential of arts and culture.

The policy recommendations were shared at an event in the UK Parliament on Thursday 19 May 2022, hosted by Baroness Judith Blake.

Ben Walmsley presented the recommendations and was joined by Lord Parkinson, Minister for the Arts, as well as senior officials and sector representatives.

This high-level event is part of the Centre for Cultural Value’s wider efforts to ensure that policy is always research-led and supports decision makers at local and national levels to safeguard and enhance the creative and cultural life of the nation.

Read Culture in Crisis: Recommendations for Policymakers

This two-minute video gives an overview of the original Culture in Crisis research:

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Nowist, Artist and Activist Adah Parris joins the Advisory group as Chair. An enthusiastic curator of people, patterns and stories, her work sits at the intersection of ecology, technology, innovation and art. The Centre would also like to thank Catherine Mallyon who is stepping down following her tenure as Advisory Group Chair.

Adah said:

“I believe that many of society’s biggest problems are caused by differing perceptions of value and impact. I am honoured to be joining the Advisory Group for the Centre for Cultural Value as Chair at a time when the world is looking and ready for new measures of success. I feel that we have a window of opportunity to empathetically influence the status quo by integrating some of the lifelong lessons this latest pandemic had taught us individually and collectively. I’m excited for what lies ahead of us all.”

Five new Advisory Group members have also been appointed: cultural relations specialist Kate Arthurs; creative sector leader Jo McLean; financial services specialist Shreeya Paudel; Tribe Arts founder Tajpal Rathore; and EDI specialist and advisor Rob Adediran.

Ben Walmsley, Centre for Cultural Value Director said:

“I’m delighted to welcome these brilliant six people to our Advisory Group. Together, they bring an incredible wealth of insight and expertise and they will help us to navigate the next stage of our journey as a new national research centre.”

We also welcome new faces to the Centre’s core team. John Wright joins as Postdoctoral Research Associate, his current focus being an extensive review of research and practice relating everyday creativity and participation. Jenny Elliott joins as Communications Manager and Amy Rushby as Communications Officer (Maternity Cover) both working to communicate our work and reach new audiences.

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Through an in-depth case study of LEEDS 2023, the city’s dedicated year of culture, this doctoral research project will explore the policy, management and methodological issues involved in capturing the value and impact of a city of culture programme.

We are looking to host and supervise a PhD that critically investigates the following research questions:

• What are the opportunities and challenges of using mixed-methods research to capture the value and impact of a city of culture programme?
• What are the practical and ethical considerations of not only capturing a diverse range of participant and audience voices but ensuring differences of opinion are heard?
• Who are the key stakeholders and audiences for evaluations of cities of culture and what are the implications of this for developing a suitable evaluation framework?
• What roles should reflective practice and the acknowledgement of failure play in evaluating cultural events?
• What are the mechanisms by which evaluation can contribute to learning that leads to change?

This project will be jointly supervised by Professor Ben Walmsley (Director of Centre for Cultural Value) and Dr Leila Jancovich (Director of Research and Innovation in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries). The successful candidate will be integrated into the Centre for Cultural Value as part of its research and evaluation of LEEDS 2023, led by The Audience Agency.

Applications are open until Monday 6 June. More information and how to apply.

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Liz Harrop and Lisa Baxter write about our newly launched Collaborate fund, and how ten shortlisted organisations have been matched with academic researchers.

In October last year, we launched our new research fund – Collaborate. Our core aim at the Centre is to deepen understanding of the differences culture makes to people’s lives and to communities. We believe that research is a vital part of enhancing insights into cultural value, and through Collaborate we are supporting research partnerships between cultural organisations and academic researchers to do just this.

Collaborate aims to fund new research partnerships that are activated by the real world questions of the cultural sector, and that also examine under-explored areas of cultural value and start to develop new methodologies.

Shaping the fund
Before launching the fund we consulted widely with the cultural sector and started a pilot project to test our processes. As a result of what we heard, we developed a light-touch ‘expression of interest’ application for the cultural sector and a similar process for academics to respond to a shortlist of proposals from cultural organisations.

We also built in plenty of time for the cultural organisations and practitioners who were successful in the first stage to select an academic to work with, along with the space to build their nascent partnership ahead of submitting a joint application to the fund in May 2022.

An appetite for research
We had a hunch that there was a strong appetite for this fund, but given the stark impacts of the pandemic on the cultural sector, we weren’t sure how many would be in a position to make a research collaboration a priority. We were delighted when we received 183 expressions of interest from cultural sector organisations and practitioners – if anything, questions about the differences that culture makes to people’s lives have come into sharp relief during the pandemic and this was evident in the applications.

Difficult choices and matchmaking
Our selection panel had the challenging job of whittling down the applications to a shortlist of 10 exciting project proposals that cover a wide range of cultural activities and research objectives.

Academics were then invited to respond and to express their interest in working with one of the ten proposed projects, and we received 56 applications. These were shortlisted and shared with the ten cultural organisations who embarked on a series of exploratory conversations to identify their best academic match.

Our thanks go to all the cultural sector organisations and academics who applied to the scheme, and special thanks to our independent panel members Lara Ratnaraja and Dr Roaa Ali for their time and expertise in the process.

More than just funding
You can read more about the ten proposed projects and their academic research partners below. All are now working together in an exploratory phase to develop a full application to the Collaborate fund.

We will announce the first Collaborate cohort (those who will receive the full funding to work together for 12 months) in early June.

Collaborate has developed to be much more than just a funding opportunity. We’ve built in learning and development opportunities throughout the process, and the time and space to broker meaningful and mutually beneficial partnerships. Although we will not be able to fund all ten projects, we hope that everyone who has taken part in this process is fired up by the potential of research and able to find other sources of support to make their project happen.

The Collaborate fund will be open again for expressions of interest in November 2022.

The projects in development

1. Artichoke Trust with Jacek Ludwig Scarso, The School of Art, Architecture and Design (AAD) at London Metropolitan University

Artichoke produce mass outdoor events and want to explore why outdoor art matters and to rethink how we capture the effects of mass cultural gatherings.

Artichoke is working with Jacek Ludwig Scarso, who specialises in ephemerality in public art and creative approaches to public engagement. Artichoke were drawn to the collaborative way of working and the practice-as-research methodology proposed by Jacek. Jacek is also involved with the University’s CREATURE: Research Centre for Creative Arts, Cultures and Engagement, which has experience of developing and disseminating research outcomes through creative practice,  public and performative activities.

2. Cinema Nation with Maya Nedyalkova, School of Arts, Oxford Brookes University

Cinema Nation wants to look at how community cinemas function and how internal cultures might relate to external cultural value and impact at local and national levels. It is particularly interested in organisations that are run by marginalised groups, and in organisations that embrace collectivity and DIY culture, especially those who see themselves and the communities they serve as interconnected eco-systems. 

Cinema Nation is working with Maya Nedyalkova and feel there is a strong connection between her work and theirs. Maya is knowledgeable about cinema, understands audiences and organisations and she proposed clear working methods based on her previous experiences working with academics and practitioners.

3. Charis Beoku-Betts, supported by Derby Museums with Tara Povey, Lecturer in Post-Colonial and Global History at Goldsmiths

A freelance artist working with the support of Derby Museums, Charis wants to explore the experience of Black people in UK Museums, particularly against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter, the return of the Benin artefacts and the Covid pandemic. Charis is working with Dr Tara Povey.

4. Compass Live Art with Matthew Reason, Institute for Social Justice, York St John University

Compass Live Art want to explore what participants and artists hope to gain from taking part in their 2022 festival in Leeds, monitor engagement and crucially look at the long term impacts of a live arts festival.

Compass is working with Matthew Reason and Lauren Hall from York St John. The organisation liked the creativity of Matthew’s suggested methodologies (e.g. walking interviews at the locations where projects took place) and the fact that he was keen to create structures that can be repeated by Compass in future festivals. Compass are excited by the idea that the research in itself feels like a creative project and that its results can be shared creatively at the final stages.

5. Crafts Council with Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas, Professor of Marketing and Sustainable Business, Glasgow Caledonian University London

Crafts Council want to understand the cultural value of craft, and the impact of immigration, migration, movement, displacement and community on cultural production and making.

 Crafts Council is working with a team from GCU London led by Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas to develop a social Living Lab. As the University for the Common Good, GCU London delivers social benefit and impact through its research. Natascha brings experience and understanding of participation methodology, emphasising the importance of new approaches to engaging with people who aren’t part of established networks, may practise in less visible spaces (e.g. at home) and who may not call what they do ‘craft’.

 Natascha and her team are experienced in conducting community-based research including using craft as participation method for appreciative inquiry.  They understand craft as a situated practice informed by culture and race, the starting point for Craft Council’s research that is now driving an intersectional approach in its work.

6. Liverpool Biennial working with Sandra Hiett, Senior Lecturer in Art and Design Education, Liverpool Hope University

Liverpool Biennial wants to explore the benefits of connecting local, working-class communities with contemporary visual arts.

The Biennial is working with Sandra Hiett. Her ‘action research’ approach and her listening, participant-led methodology are a good fit with the work of the Biennial and the communities Sandra would be working with. Sandra also has brilliant local knowledge and is passionate about art and its potential for change. Sandra’s previous research projects have inspired Liverpool Biennial to think about the research differently.

7. National Museums Liverpool working with Sophie Oliver, Lecturer in English, University of Liverpool

How can objects from the past help us understand the complexities of gender today? National Museums Liverpool want to explore how their collections can be used by individuals to narrate their own experiences of gender, including cis-gendered, trans and non-binary people.

National Museums Liverpool is working with Sophie Oliver. There is a strong alignment between the museums’ and Sophie’s work and interests, particularly in terms of how to approach this research and how to add multiple voices and layered interpretation to create a dialogue between the past and the present. 

Sophie has a clear vision for how the museums can engage with diverse groups, starting with the objects and using them as a starting point for people to talk about their lived experiences of gender. Sophie wants the research to influence the museum’s future practice including curation and interpretation and to connect with other academics and museum professionals.

8. Quarantine with Rox Middleton, School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol

Quarantine is interested in exploring moments of beauty in live performance, and examining the value of beauty.

 The organisation is working with Rox Middleton from the University of Bristol. Quarantine found that there was a surprising alignment between Rox’s work and its interests, with rich territory to explore together. 

As a physicist, Rox brings a different lens through which to look at Quarantine’s work and research question, which will usefully expand the thinking (in both directions). Rox is also interested in exploring ideas of beauty and value in physics and the natural sciences and in science communication. Together they want to open a new vista on the articulation of the value of beauty.

9. Rising Arts Agency with Andreana Drencheva, Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, University of Sheffield

Rising Arts Agency is a Bristol-based community of young creatives aged 16–30 mobilising others for radical social, political and cultural change. It wants to explore the nature of truly equitable partnerships in the cultural sector, particularly the power imbalances at play between funders or large institutions and small grassroots organisation.

Rising Arts Agency will be working with Andreana Drencheva and felt that Andreana’s expertise around the specificity of social enterprises and power would lend itself well for the project. They’re excited to work in a truly collaborative way, bringing different lived experiences to the table to explore the individual and institutional benefits truly equitable partnerships do and could have on the wider cultural sector.

10. Something To Aim For with Harry Dyer, Lecturer in Education, University of East Anglia

Something To Aim For (STAF) works at the intersection of the arts, learning, health, and wellbeing sectors. It wants to explore the interactions and the barriers people experience in engaging with culture in the digital space, specifically for groups who are currently under-represented. Initially working with visually impaired artists and communities, the project will explore how visually impaired performers can make compelling work in digital spaces, creating representation on stage and engaging diverse audiences

STAF are working with Harry Dyer. There are strong shared values between the organisation and Harry’s work. Harry has a clear and sensitive understanding of the complex issues STAF wants to explore in relation to access and systemic exclusion and is stretching the way STAF is approaching the research to include practice based inclusive action research processes.  

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In this event, hosted in partnership with Connecting Through Culture As We Age, we share the key findings from our latest research digest.

Connecting Through Culture As We Age will  share and discuss some of the key findings from their research into the experience of cultural participation, including digital participation, for the 60-75 year old co-researchers at the heart of their study.

Contributors will include:

• Dr Helen Manchester
• Dr Alice Willatt
• Dr Stuart Gray (Connecting Through Culture As We Age project)
• Dr Robyn Dowlen (Centre for Cultural Value)
• Plus older people, practitioners and policymakers working in this area.

Come along if you are a practitioner, policymaker or academic interested in the impact of cultural participation in later life!

Accessibility

We want to make the event a positive experience for all participants. If you have particular access needs please let us know at the time of booking.

The session takes place on Zoom. Read Zoom’s accessibility FAQ’s here.

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