EU culture and creative sectors policy overview and future perspectives
This study was requested by the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education.
It provides a comprehensive overview and understanding of the main current and future issues to be expected in the area of EU culture and creative sectors policy in the 2024-2029 term of the European Parliament.
The study highlights the missing role of culture in Europe's strategic agenda and the need for better cross-sectoral collaboration.
It also points out that no arts-driven transformation will be possible without more sustainable working environments. And that accessible cultural spaces are critical nodes for artistic creation and community interaction.
The study alerts policymakers that the dominant short-term project funding logic in cultural policy continues to create an environment where strategic, cross-sectoral initiatives are underfunded.
Long-term visions and more sustainable funding mechanisms would be the basis for collaborative action to create better futures for societies.
State of Culture
Culture, politics and public discourse
CAE's State of Culture report emphasizes the essential role that culture plays in shaping democratic futures, providing meaning, and fostering collective identity in societies undergoing rapid change.
Culture Action Europe (CAE) advocates for recognizing culture as a vital force for sustainable, inclusive societies.
The State of Culture Report highlights the gap between culture’s profound impact on societal values and its marginal role in political discourse, noting that culture is sidelined in international policies, such as Europe's Strategic Agenda and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
The report outlines CAE’s strategic focus on three areas: Cultural Democracy and Leadership, Sustainability, and the Cultural Ecosystem. The State of Culture is a benchmark for future discussions, aiming to solidify culture as a central pillar in policymaking and societal transitions.
Performing Gender: Dancing in Your Shoes
Gender, Sexual Identity, Community Engaged Practices and Social Cohesion
Performing Gender—Dancing in Your Shoes was a three-year audience development project that created bonds between cultural professionals and their local communities in the fields of dance and performing arts through a discussion on gender.
The Project's learnings are collected in a handbook that doubles as a practical guide for those embarking on a community-based art project. It offers a comprehensive framework and recommendations for social impact evaluation in the field of performing arts, to both non-experts and experts such as policymakers and cultural sector operators.
Key policy recommendations have been developed departing from the data analysis conducted by the research team and reworked by the British Council in order to identify five main recommendations during the project's final Summit in Brussels (November 2023).
These recommendations are the result of the expertise developed by the project's consortium partners through almost 10 years of previous Performing Gender editions, including a deep understanding of questions around gender and sexual identity.
Freelance Dance Artists’ Working Ecology
Artist Status and Working Conditions in Dance
This research project was co-produced with 74 freelance dance artists based in the UK. Over 12 months, the project gathered groups of artists to discuss their working conditions. This report collates the activities and findings, interspersed with practical recommendations for policymakers, arts organisations, venues, education institutions and all who interact with freelance workers.
Three themes emerged: Fair Pay and Contracts, Cross-Organisational and Union Working, and Dance’s Value in Culture and Education.
The project was funded by the British Academy, and was conducted by Karen Wood, dance artist and Associate Professor at the Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University, with One Dance UK, the UK advocacy body for dance, as the cultural partner.
Cultural Adaptation Toolkits
Climate change and ecological sustainability
Cultural Adaptations brought together leading cultural organisations in Belgium, Ireland, Scotland and Sweden with innovative local adaptation partners to create new knowledge, skills and opportunities for cultural and adaptation practitioners and policy makers.
The project has been exploring how cultural organisations can adapt to the impacts of climate change and thrive in a climate-changed world. The result of this action-research project is an in-depth toolkit specifically tailored to support cultural organisations in planning their adaptation to climate change.
Outcomes include two process-oriented toolkits to support collaborative partnerships between organisations and individuals with different skills and a shared commitment to work together.
Creative Pulse: survey results
Artists status and working conditions
Culture Action Europe, in partnership with Panteia, has conducted a survey on the status and working conditions of artists and cultural and creative sector professionals in Europe.
The report reveals alarmingly poor working conditions for freelancers and self-employed artists, a lack of social protection, persistent gender inequalities and rising restrictions on artistic expression.
The report also shows that 90% of cultural organizations, institutions, and policymakers surveyed support the adoption of legislation to address working conditions, with 96% believing it would lead to improvements.
Through this survey report, Culture Action Europe urges the European Commission to act on the European Parliament’s recommendations to protect cultural workers’ rights and ensure fair remuneration and artistic freedom in a democratic and tolerant Europe.
Nordic Culture Fund's Globus Programme Report
Equity in international relations & intercultural collaborations
This report explores and shares insights on current challenges and potentials within transnational artistic and cultural collaborations.
The research is based on the inputs and documentation provided by the grantees of the Nordic Culture Fund's Globus programme during 2023. The knowledge is specific to the 14 projects that attended the process and builds on the situated experiences expressed by the various practitioners and experts.
The key insights are presented through four central dimensions, each of which include a set of pathways and opportunity spaces that have been identified:
These are meant as a source of inspiration and reflection that can guide and inform future practice, programmes and initiatives that seek to work within transnational artistic and cultural space.
The dimensions address prevailing issues in cultural policies and existing funding programmes that might stand in the way of more purposeful and reciprocal collaborations. Additionally, they outline a new narrative that emphasises the importance of long-term, process-based and flexible approaches to supporting cultural and artistic collaborations.
The status and working conditions of artists and cultural and creative professionals
Working conditions in cultural and creative sectors
This report is the result of the work of the EU Open Method of Coordination (OMC) group of Member States’ experts.
The scope of this report is the status and working conditions of artists and cultural and creative professionals, taking into account the wider ecosystem supporting artists and cultural and creative professionals.
It provides a collection of good practice for advancing further policy learning and development, as well as policy recommendations.
Working conditions in dance
Dance Ireland with Theatre and Dance NI have launched the Dance Counts Report, a major undertaking of research over the last three years into living and working conditions in the dance sector on the island of Ireland.
The report highlights the ongoing challenges faced by dance artists and arts workers across four key areas: the costs of dance, spaces for dance, wellbeing and caring and education and training.
Civic engagement, democracy and social cohesion
This report analyses the concrete link between democracy and culture. It maps out how citizens who participate in cultural activities are much more likely to engage in civic and democratic life.
Inequalities persist throughout the EU when it comes to citizens’ participation in cultural activities, with a clear knock-on impact on democratic participation. By engaging in an active form of cultural participation, dance contributes to increased social cohesion and a stronger sense of community.
Investing in citizens’ cultural participation is essential in any effort to promote civic engagement and democratic outcomes in the EU - at European, national, regional and local level.
Climate crisis and the green transition
This report comes from a sector-wide initiative that aims to think and act on the ecological revolution that must happen in the European performing arts sector.
The aim is to define how contributions can be made in the world of performing arts, and society in general, to bring about a model that is compatible with the future of life on Earth, and on which our very survival depends.
Participants of the forum in Strasbourg were to formulate key commitments of the European performing arts sector as a whole, with action plans to ensure that the necessary transformation brings about real change and fast.
Dance dramaturgy, democracy and social cohesion
This open-access glossary is the result of a collaboration between six European contemporary dance organisations Anghiari Dance Hub and Marche Teatro from Italy, Bora Bora Dance and Visual Theater from Denmark, Dance House Lemesos from Cyprus, DansBrabant from the Netherlands, and Tanec Praha from the Czech Republic.
The cooperation project explored micro and macro dramaturgy in dance as a creative and socially conscious practice.
EDIA Equity - Diversity - Inclusion - Access
Two years on from the ground-breaking Time to Act report, British Council has commissioned On the Move – to conduct a follow-up report looking further into the knowledge gaps in the cultural sector that contribute towards inequalities for disabled artists and audiences.
This new report reveals data-led insights into the accessibility, inclusion, international mobility and professional development of disabled artists in the European performing arts sector, as well as the progress made over the past few years.
Equity & fair practices
This publication is the result of A Fair New World?! research and development trajectory that ran from 2020 to 2022, in which Flanders Arts Institute has been exploring ways in which engaged arts professionals can collectively shape a fairer, more sustainable, and more inclusive world.
An inspiring resource and collection of experiences and practices in working internationally in arts.
Health, care & wellbeing
The report showcases the findings of over 300 scientific studies and 500+ projects that show art and culture’s contribution to health and wellbeing. The aim of this scoping review is to synthesise existing evidence on the positive effect of arts and cultural activities on health and well-being. This means the review is not limited to a few research questions but seeks to provide a clear indication of the volume of existing literature, the key concepts, focus points and the types of studies that exist. It also identifies knowledge gaps in the existing literature. Finally, it gathers policy recommendations and identifies challenges, further expanding the scope of the report beyond the proposed policy directions and specific policy measures.
Digital guidebook "Soft Skills in Dance" supports dance practitioners in reflecting on their own practice, with regard to soft skills. The guidebook was developed by seven European partners and their teams, including EDN members CSC - Centro per la Scena Contemporanea (Bassano del Grappa, Italy), Dansateliers (Rotterdam, Netherlands), HIPP - Croatian Institute for Movement and Dance (Zagreb, Croatia), K3 | Tanzplan Hamburg / Kampnagel (Germany) and La Briqueterie CDCN of Val-de-Marne (Vitry-sur-Seine, France).
Distribution: access, green transition, digitalisation
Between December 2020 and June 2021, Perform Europe explored and mapped the context in which performing art works have been presented across borders in the past few years. The research team identified and analysed the current issues and disparities in the European system of performing arts touring and presentation, and indicated some solutions for bringing change. This report summarises the key findings of this research.
Perform Europe Insights: Sustainability through innovation is the first publication of Perform Europe. This report brings together the main learning points the consortium has drawn from the Perform Europe process, since its start in December 2020. The Perform Europe process (so far) highlights the urgency to rethink the current system of touring and distribution support in Europe, in order to make it more balanced, sustainable and inclusive.
Report emerges from the first European Arts & Disability Cluster meeting in The Hague on 30 November 2019, hosted by two of the core partners of Europe Beyond Access, British Council and Holland Dance Festival. Co-authored by Betina Panagiotara (dance researcher and journalist, Greece), Ben Evans (Head of Arts & Disability, European Union Region) and Filip Pawlak (artist and producer, Poland), it outlines one major policy recommendation for a new European cultural agenda and six proposals for the forthcoming 2021-2027 Creative Europe programme.
Dancing Museums #2 was an action research project involving 11 partners: 6 dance organisations, 2 museums, 1 university and 1 research centre, plus a multitude of other associated museums. Seven dance artists provided the creative engine for the journey. The aim of the project was to look at how the presence of dance can offer new ways of experiencing art and heritage.