Context This project aims to inform conceptual understanding of cultural leadership amongst artists and policy makers and to influence the long term direction of leadership development training in the sector. The proposal aims to develop awareness, use and impact of two related research projects: the Artist as Leader (AHRC funded 2006-8, PI Douglas, RA Fremantle) and Discourses of Cultural Leadership (IDEAS/RGU funded doctoral research, 2012-15, Price). The Artist as Leader studied the processes through which artists shape their art forms, their sector's organisations and the wider public sphere. It involved contributions from artists and policy makers including senior leaders from Creative Scotland, Arts Council England, Southbank Centre, Jerwood Foundation, Scottish Government and British Council. The research was acknowledged by the national Clore Leadership Programme as influential in establishing dedicated Artist Fellowships among its opportunities. Ongoing relevance is demonstrated by continuing investment in cultural leadership by public and voluntary organisations in the UK and internationally. However, the high level of demand for non-academic professional engagement with the research was not originally foreseen. Moreover, cultural sector circumstances changed rapidly in the aftermath of the Artist as Leader report's publication, with the implications of the global economic crisis creating political and financial upheaval. The economic growth and cultural sector investment which had framed initial work was replaced with a climate of cuts, resilience and survival. The need to follow-up Artist as Leader was recognised by RGU in 2012 with investment in doctoral research responding to these altered contexts. This built on the Artist as Leader's framework for analysis, focusing on the now established term 'cultural leadership' (including libraries/heritage practice) and exploring relationships between this and the 'artist as leader' concept. Aims and objectives While the research has been updated, the professional network currently lacks opportunities to work through its implications for policy and practice. There is a need to develop pathways for engagement and to maximise the impact of both research projects. This demand is compounded by challenges currently facing the cultural sector in terms of relationships to public funding, pressures to develop new organisational models, and adjustments to roles and relationships necessitated by change. The project aims to meet both this demand and an additional need identified through Discourses of Cultural Leadership in learning from different national contexts, building cross-cultural expertise. The project creates a partnership actively responding to the core research issues, discussing and disseminating its findings and establishing practical applications of its analytical methodology. Partnership, activities and outcomes The project will operate over 12 months from October 2015. Non-academic partners are the Clore Leadership Programme, Creative Scotland, the European Network of Cultural Administration Training Centres (ENCATC); additional interest is confirmed from BOZAR (Brussels) as a collaborating venue. These organisations and their networks will be engaged through a series of 3 one-day knowledge exchange events in London, Edinburgh and Brussels (25 participants at each) which will inform the development of sector-specific communications representing the research to wider networks of artists and organisational leaders. Responses to these initiatives, together with event discussions and ongoing feedback from our partners, will inform the direction of future research. A new web site will be developed to present the research, events and discussions. The event structure is based on previous labs held within the Artist as Leader work, including an Artist in Residence tasked with ensuring creative responses to the process and generating critical reflection.

This project proposes a radical re-evaluation of the relationship between participation and cultural value. Bringing together evidence from in-depth historical analyses, the re-use of existing quantitative data and new qualitative research on the detail, dynamics and significance of 'everyday participation', it will create new understandings of community formation, connectivity and capacity through participation. Orthodox models of the creative economy and ensuing cultural policy are based on a narrow definition of cultural participation; one that captures formal engagement with traditional cultural institutions, such as museums and galleries, but overlooks other activities, for instance community festivals and hobbies. This frame, founded historically on deficit based assumptions of the logics for state cultural support, misses opportunities to understand the variety of forms of participation and their (positive and negative) consequences. We argue that by creating new understandings of the relationships between everyday participation, community and cultural value, we will reveal evidence of hidden assets and resources that can be mobilised to promote better identification and more equitable resourcing of cultural opportunities, generate well-being and contribute to the development of creative local economies. The central research questions are: - How, historically, did we arrive at the definitions, fields of knowledge and policy frames informing notions of cultural participation and value today? - What are the forms and practices of everyday participation - where do they take place? How are they valued? And how do these practices relate to formal participation? - How is participation shaped by space, place and locality? - How are communities made, unmade, divided and connected through participation? - How can broader understandings of value in and through participation be used to inform the development of vibrant communities and creative local economies? - How do we reconnect cultural policy and institutions with everyday participation? Using a variety of methodologies, including historical analysis, qualitative work with communities of practice and use, and the reanalysis of existing data on participation and time-use, this project focuses on six contrasting 'cultural ecosystems' to investigate the connections between multiple understandings of community (geographical, elective, identity based etc), cultural value, 'cultural economy' and everyday participation. The findings from the situated case studies will inform four partnership-operated trials of new policy interventions or of professional or community practices. Throughout the project research will be integrated with key partners, stakeholder cultural and community organisations in order to evolve better, shared understandings of everyday cultural participation and the implications of this for policy makers and cultural organisations at national, local and community levels.