Cultural intermediation: connecting communities in the creative urban economy

Cultural intermediation is a process which connects different kinds of communities into the creative economy and wider society. It plays a critical role in raising aspirations, upskilling and building confidence, all of which are vital to allow people to engage with and benefit from one of the most dynamic sectors of the contemporary UK economy.

Individual artists, professional networks, events, festivals, commissioning bodies, creative businesses, arts and cultural organisations both large and small can all play intermediary roles. Some of the most exciting opportunities for research in this area are occurring in the city regions. In part this is because of their size and multiplicity of cultural resources, but also because these areas have large concentrations of communities suffering multiple deprivation who are being left behind by the post-industrial creative economy.

Investigations undertaken as part of developing this research project revealed that those individuals and organisations undertaking cultural intermediation are coming under significant pressure. Public sector funding cuts and a new agenda of localism are changing the relationship that intermediaries have with the state, requiring a reappraisal of their activities. The 'Big Society' agenda places an emphasis on community-led activities at the same time that the institutional support for capacity building in those communities through cultural intermediation is being squeezed. The creative sector is itself highly fragmented with weak connections between different sectors, different communities and policy processes. So-called 'hard-to-reach' communities remain disconnected, suffering multiple deprivation, social disenfranchisement and exclusion.

Acknowledging the importance of cultural intermediation, the research asks to what extent these processes meet the needs of urban communities in the 21st century and how they might operate more effectively. The aim of the research is to discover how the value of cultural intermediation can be captured and how this activity can be enhanced to create more effective connection between communities and the creative economy. The objectives of the research are to: create new ways of measuring value; analyse the historic development of cultural intermediation to inform current practice; examine how intermediation fits within the existing policy landscape and the governance of relations between the different actors; explore the effectiveness of intermediation activity from a community perspective; design new forms of intermediation through a series of practice-based interventions; and reflect on the process of working across and between disciplines and sectors in order to enhance practice.

The research has a number of key applications and wider benefits. In providing a means to capture the value of intermediation, policy makers and practitioners will be able to foster better practice. This is of particular importance given the shifts in the governance and funding landscape, particularly within the public sector. The historical material, will provide a crucial evidence base situating understandings of intermediation, providing lessons to current practitioners. Those creative intermediaries directly involved in the interventions will receive training in research methods in order to analyse and improve their own practice. A subsequent 'how-to' research guide will disseminate these lessons more widely. Academically the research will make a major contribution to debates on: creativity and valuation; the historical evolution of the creative economy; governance and localism; practice-based methods; interdisciplinarity and epistemic communities; and the role of culture in connecting communities.

The research will have impact across a number of sectors including policymakers, cultural intermediaries, arts practitioners, communities, creative businesses and academics.

The mapping and valuation work (WP1) will be of direct benefit to DCMS as well as regional and local policy makers. DCMS have already commissioned work on modes of valuing the creative economy and a specific analysis of intermediation will be of particular use, feeding into debates on the most effective use of public resources in order to maximise the engagement of communities in the creative economy. This will tie into the analysis of cultural policy and governance at the local scale (WP3) which will produce reports looking at best practice in joining up different activities across the sector in order to produce more effective modes of working. This will benefit not only national and local policymakers (including direct engagement with Manchester and Birmingham City Councils) but also those working within cultural intermediation to enhance integration with policy networks.

The historical work (WP2) and creative interventions (WP5) will produce outputs which will directly benefit Birmingham Museums and Art Galleries, the Library of Birmingham and Manchester International Festival through a series of installations based on multi-touch tables. In the first two cases this will provide content to populate existing investment in this technology as part of the ERDF-funded Digital Demonstrator project at the University of Birmingham. The development of this multiplatform technology (WP6) will also form a significant output in its own right, providing a model for museums/galleries/businesses to scale content across web/mobile/touch-table for a more immersive experience.

The intervention practices (WP5) will be artistic outputs in their own right to be engaged with by a general audience, but they will have significant additional benefits. By providing training to cultural intermediaries to undertake research - and producing a best practice guide for the wider sector - different creative organisations and individual artists will gain skills to undertake critical review of their own practice. Through collaboration with a-n the Artists' Information Company, there is a clear route for disseminating these lessons across a wide community of practitioners. This is complimented by training community researchers (WP4) to examine the ways in which cultural intermediation has impacted on their lives. This will have direct benefit to those trained in terms of upskilling, confidence building and direct engagement in developing new modes of working to improve community engagement in these activities.

By feeding into the research process as stakeholders on the Steering Group, Virtual Panel and local panels, practitioners and policymakers will help to shape the research to address specific areas of need within their areas of interest. In addition, membership of these groups will represent significant networking opportunities and capacity building for participants, particularly in terms of engaging with the HE sector.

The seminar and pamphlet series will ensure that a range of practitioners, policymakers, community groups and academic stakeholders are engaged with the practical and theoretical lessons delivered by the research. A process of reflecting on the research project, its modes of knowledge exchange and epistemic communities will improve the quality of this engagement and provide lessons for improving future practice in interdisciplinary working across and beyond the HE sector.