A project that aims to advance our understanding of the value of culture was launched on 19 July.
Directed by Professor Geoffrey Crossick, who steps down at the end of this month as Vice Chancellor of the University of London, and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the project will run for two years and will aim to address central questions concerning the value of culture to individuals and to society.
AHRC writes:
The project will support researchers to investigate the perspectives on the value of culture which are most important and the methods that are best suited to investigate them, and it will do so through open call and peer review judgment. It will develop a range of outcomes: methodological investigation and testing, an evidence base through case studies and other means, and conceptual and comparative discussion of a complex problem too often over-simplified. Through these outcomes the Project will clarify research-led understanding of an area often dominated by assertion; it will gather and develop robust evidence to inform policy development; and it hopes to pioneer fresh and revealing approaches that will affect the ways in which we discuss the issue. The AHRC expects it to stimulate broad public debate on the true value of arts and cultural activity and its vital importance for our future.
For more information see: LINK
