Research and development on the practice and value of arts and cultural work in health, social care and criminal justice systems.
Frontline Culture is the new online space for research led by Kerry Wilson, Reader in Cultural Policy at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) in the UK, including archive of research led by Kerry at the Institute of Cultural Capital (ICC) under the theme of Cultural Value and Public Policy (2010-23). The ICC was a cultural policy research centre, jointly hosted by LJMU and the University of Liverpool, which specialised in research and evaluation on the impact and value of arts and culture to society and was launched in 2010 as a legacy initiative of Liverpool’s tenure as European Capital of Culture 2008. Kerry is now part of LJMU’s Institute for Health Research, where she Co-leads the Social Innovation research group.
The ICC’s Cultural Value and Public Policy research theme considered the role and value of cultural sectors and organisations in responding and contributing to public policy agendas in the UK. Inspired in part by existing theoretical models that seek to correlate conventional modes of intrinsic, instrumental and ‘other’ (e.g. institutional) cultural value – see for example different work by David Throsby and John Holden – this research programme examined the extent to which the unique aesthetics and creative elements of cultural work translate into instrumental value for collaborating (public) services and sectors. Examples of such instrumental value include workforce skills development, economic value through social return on investment and impact upon organisational culture. The leadership role of arts and cultural organisations in positioning themselves as community assets and driving forward the sector’s collaborative, instrumental cultural value was an integral point of consideration within this work.
Frontline Culture is now organised under four key research themes:
1 The Social Value of Cultural Work
2 Cultural Assets, Communities and Place