HEartS Professional: The Health, Economic and Social impact of COVID-19 on PROFESSIONALs in the ARTs
Lead Research Organisation:
Royal College of Music
Department Name: Research
Abstract
The arts and culture sectors play a vital role in connecting and inspiring communities. In the COVID-19 crisis, these sectors are also among the most disrupted, with performances, exhibitions and exchanges of all kinds all but halted. The arts and cultural economies, and those who work within them, face unprecedented challenges and uncertainty.
HEartS Professional addresses this by investigating the health, wellbeing and financial impact of the crisis on professionals in the arts and culture sectors, providing knowledge, leadership, advocacy and new ways forward when and where they are needed most.
The project surveys arts and culture professionals to determine precisely where challenges lie and how they evolve as the crisis unfolds, responding to those challenges with targeted investigations. It celebrates innovative responses to the crisis and shares examples of good practice. Moreover, it explores how digital tools can be quickly designed, adapted and implemented to ensure that culture and arts professionals have available new methods to sustain their practices and serve their communities.
HEartS Professional addresses this by investigating the health, wellbeing and financial impact of the crisis on professionals in the arts and culture sectors, providing knowledge, leadership, advocacy and new ways forward when and where they are needed most.
The project surveys arts and culture professionals to determine precisely where challenges lie and how they evolve as the crisis unfolds, responding to those challenges with targeted investigations. It celebrates innovative responses to the crisis and shares examples of good practice. Moreover, it explores how digital tools can be quickly designed, adapted and implemented to ensure that culture and arts professionals have available new methods to sustain their practices and serve their communities.
Organisations
Publications
Shaughnessy C
(2022)
The future of the cultural workforce: Perspectives from early career arts professionals on the challenges and future of the cultural industries in the context of COVID-19.
in Social sciences & humanities open
Spiro N
(2020)
The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown 1.0 on Working Patterns, Income, and Wellbeing Among Performing Arts Professionals in the United Kingdom (April-June 2020).
in Frontiers in psychology
Spiro N
(2023)
Modelling arts professionals' wellbeing and career intentions within the context of COVID-19
in PLOS ONE
| Title | The HEartS Professional project in action: exploring the role of VR in performing arts |
| Description | A film summarising a HEartS Professional event in which attendees of the Royal College of Music Festival of Percussion experienced a virtual reality presentation of percussion performance. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The film has been used to demonstrate the outputs of the HEartS Professional project across project activities. |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1AVk-2wIqs |
| Title | The effects of COVID-19 lockdown 1.0 on performing arts professionals |
| Description | This film summarises research examining how arts professionals were affected by the first COVID-19 lockdown. The full report can be found at: Spiro N, Perkins R, Kaye S, Tymoszuk U, Mason-Bertrand A, Cossette I, Glasser S, and Williamon A (2020), The effects of COVID-19 Lockdown 1.0 on working patterns, income, and wellbeing among performing arts professionals in the United Kingdom (April-June 2020), Frontiers in Psychology, 11 (594086), pp. 1-17. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | This film forms part of the Healthy Conservatoires resources publicly available on its website (www.HealthyConservatoires.org/films) and Healthy Conservatoires YouTube channel. |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lr0dF5PZrY |
| Description | Through large-scale surveys and focussed interviews, HEartS Professional has found interconnecting pressures on performing artists brought about and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. These include financial hardship, poor health, and isolation that continue to impact on professional artists' wellbeing and their creative practice. Our results show that early career professionals, while most at risk of experiencing depression and financial hardship, have shown high levels of adaptability. Their experiences during the pandemic have disrupted their artistic practice. This includes developing a greater sense of social responsibility, prioritising the role of arts in health, and a commitment to the technology-driven future of the arts. These findings also highlight the resilience of artists in the sector, which can inform how to promote professional wellbeing moving forward. There have been clear shifts in both the public's and artists' increased uses of technology to engage with the arts during the pandemic, particularly online. We have found a lack of spending in relation to these new, online avenues of consuming the arts, with audiences preferring to use readily available devices and free-to-access platforms. We have also seen that audiences predict spending less on arts engagement in the future, exacerbated by the escalating cost-of-living crisis: this raises concerns for the going financial viability of the arts sector. Moreover, there is a need for professional upskilling in using technology to help artists connect with audiences and each other through virtual means. This will contribute to greater access to the arts and build a sustainable recovery into a hybrid, post-pandemic artistic future. Overall, our findings highlight the opportunities to challenge long-standing issues such as inequality of access to the arts, not only through enhanced technological dissemination that can reach more people but also through changing priorities, values and expectations within the cultural industries, led by those who will be the future of the workforce. |
| Exploitation Route | We are producing a series of short films that summarise and contextualise our findings by highlighting the experiences and innovations of arts professionals and practitioners. Each of these films will focus on a key thematic area emerging from the research, including financial stability, changing audiences, early career challenges, and performers' mental health. We are also exploring the use of extended reality tools and experiences to help performers prepare for the stage and engage with their audiences in new ways that can bridge physical distances. Our findings have led us to develop a series of recommendations (see Impact Summary) for government and industry-based organisations to help ensure the long-term sustainability of the culture and arts sector, affecting financial support, integration of arts, education, and health policy and practice, and embracing and enhancing new technologies across the sector. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | http://www.HealthyConservatoires.org/HEartSProfessional |
| Description | Based on the project evidence and in consultation with industry partners, we have put forward a series of recommendations to enhance the long-term stability and sustainability of the UK arts landscape. They include: (1) REFORMED FUNDING MODELS, including: • a basic guaranteed income, • minimum pay protections for creators, • targeted tax relief. Providing this stability will enable greater creative freedom that reaches beyond establishment and elite arts, promote wellbeing among artists, as well as providing the conditions to support a more diverse workforce. (2) ARTS IN HEALTH, including: • expanding social prescribing to support wellbeing and create valued workforce opportunities in this area, • investing in creative education to broaden access to the benefits of arts in health across socioeconomic groups, • funding creative health research to enable implementation and scaling up as well as scrutiny of mechanisms of change. (3) VIRTUAL AND HYBRID PERFORMANCE, including: • upskilling arts workers in digital modes of delivery, • clearer fair pay and online creative content protections, • preserving hybridity for cultural centres to deliver both online and offline options. These recommendations have been delivered in a policy briefing delivered to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and have been shared and developed with industry organisations to help amplify, align and evidence their campaigns for sustainable and healthy environments in which arts professionals can thrive. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | DCMS presentation: Impact of COVID-19 on Professionals in the Arts |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | New undergraduate module on Musical Care |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Policy Support Fund: HEartS China |
| Amount | £3,916 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Royal College of Music (RCM) |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2023 |
| End | 03/2023 |
| Description | RCM Global Challenges Research Fund: HEartS Professional China, The Health, Economic and Social impact of COVID-19 on PROFESSIONALs in the ARTs |
| Amount | £12,500 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Royal College of Music (RCM) |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2020 |
| End | 12/2020 |
| Description | RCM Knowledge Exchange Fund - Shared understanding in a museum exhibit |
| Amount | £1,480 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Royal College of Music (RCM) |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2022 |
| End | 07/2022 |
| Description | RCM Participatory Research Fund: Music therapy data visualization tool |
| Amount | £7,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Royal College of Music (RCM) |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2022 |
| End | 07/2022 |
| Description | RCM Policy Support Fund - HEartS Canada and China: Arts Engagement and Mental and Social Wellbeing During COVID-19 |
| Amount | £21,104 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Royal College of Music (RCM) |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2022 |
| End | 03/2022 |
| Description | Royal College of Music Grant (Tech Survey) |
| Amount | £2,214 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Royal College of Music (RCM) |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 05/2021 |
| End | 01/2022 |
| Title | HEartS Professional Survey: Charting the effects of COVID-19 lockdown 1.0 on working patterns, income, and wellbeing among performing arts professionals in the United Kingdom (April-June 2020) |
| Description | These data were collected using the HEartS Professional Survey from performing arts workers in the United Kingdom in April-June 2020. HEartS Professional was designed as a multi-strategy data collection tool with two main purposes: (1) to chart working patterns, income, sources of support, and indicators of mental and social wellbeing in order to identify trends in the effects of the lockdown at the time and (2) to explore the individual work and wellbeing experiences of performing arts professionals in their own words, in order to identify the subjective effects of lockdown in terms of challenges and opportunities. The survey covers six areas: (1) demographics, (2) information on illness or self-isolation related to COVID-19, (3) work profiles and income, (4) changes to work profiles and income as a result of the pandemic, as well as sources of support, (5) open-response questions about work and wellbeing experiences of lockdown including challenges and opportunities, and (6) validated measures of health, wellbeing, and social connectedness. HEartS Professional is an adaptation of the HEartS Survey which charts the Health, Economic, and Social impacts of the ARTs (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3r2280gdj). |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The dataset is currently being used within the HEartS Professional research team. It has also been viewed and downloaded by researchers internationally for further analysis. |
| URL | http://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.s7h44j14z |
| Description | Arts professionals' livelihoods beyond COVID-19: Findings and implications of the HEartS Professional project |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation at the 2nd International Music Livelihoods Online Symposium, Led by Griffith University's Creative Arts Research Institute, Australia |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://musiclivelihoods.com/ |
| Description | ISPS: Changes in technology use to engage with the arts among the UK public and arts professionals in lockdown |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Conference presentation at the International Symposium on Performance Science. Discussion afterwards reported interest in the findings and their possibilities for future technology development. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | ISPS: Snapshots of work and wellbeing of arts professionals in the UK during Covid-19 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | International conference presentation at the International Symposium on Performance Science. Dissemination of early results among colleagues and academics, with implications of results discussed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | ISPS: The future of the cultural workforce: Exploring the value of the arts in a post- Covid-19 world |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation at the International Symposium on Performance Science. Discussion among academics and professional practitioners afterwards pertaining to the implications of the results for wider and future research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Promoting arts professionals' livelihoods beyond COVID-19: Findings and implications of the HEartS Professional project |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation to the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine - engagement with third sector organisations including Help Musicians and clinician practitioners. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Royal College of Music Festival of Percussion 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Approximately 80 members of the public engaged with an exhibit at the Royal College of Music Festival of Percussion in May 2022, experiencing the act of percussion performance through a virtual reality experience developed through the HEartS Professional project. Data were collected examining the efficacy of such technologies in artistic engagement and teaching and as a tool to connect performers with their audiences. Events are being planned for 2023 based on the outcomes. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1AVk-2wIqs |
| Description | Work, finances, and wellbeing of arts professionals in the UK during COVID-19: A multi-wave, cross-sectional study |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Presentation at the 1st International Musical Livelihoods Conference |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |