The observatory at the cultural indicators course

On 9th and 10th May, Cultural indicators in Spain: uses, needs and strategies,the course organised by Fundación Autor/SGAE in conjunction with  Servici d’Assistència i Recursos Culturals de la Diputació de València, was held in Valencia.

The relationship between culture and society is increasingly more complex.  Therefore, the absolute priority for the professionals from the cultural sector is  to find accurate and thorough instruments that allow them to rigorously assess the consequences of their decisions.  These instruments are the cultural indicators and “there is a great deal of material published about them, but not too much thought has been given to it", as Rubén Gutiérrez del Castillo, the course director, pointed out during his presentation.  He stressed that this initiative is aimed at mitigating this deficit and, during his speech, he considered different aspects of the importance of cultural indicators to correctly assess the results of public cultural policies and market-orientated private decisions.   Access to rigorous, exhaustive, relevant and precise indicators is fundamental for the cultural sector, and society, to be efficiently organised and assess whether the adopted decisions are the correct ones.

Over two days, the situation regarding how cultural indicators are prepared throughout Spain was analysed by means of outlining the main initiatives currently being conducted nationwide, in the Autonomous Communities and at provincial and municipal level, together with other projects in the private and university sectors.

Special mention was made of the following projects:

• The Cultural Statistical Observatory backed by  Fundación Autor and the Valencia University,
• The Cultural Map of the province of  Valencia
• The indicator system to assess cultural policies in the framework of the Culture Agenda 21 under the aegis of the FEMP (Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces),
• The cultural indicators for the municipal setting project (PICEM) in Catalonia and
• the indicators of the Ministry of Culture.

Papers were also presented that linked the indicators to cultural demand, strategic planning, the assessment of cultural policy and market research.

Leading professionals, researchers and institutions linked to preparing cultural indicators participated in the course, such as Rubén Gutiérrez, from the Studies Department at the Fundación Autor, Ramón Llopis, from the Valencia University, Jesús Mª Cantero, from the OIKOS Observatory, Xavier Marcé, José Luis Pinotti, from SARC, Juana Escudero, from the Culture Department at the FEMP, Eulalia Espinàs, from the Catalan Ministry of Culture, Pilar Granados, from CIMEC-Millward Brown, Mª Ángeles Pérez Corrales, from the Statistical Division at the Ministry of Culture and Antonio Ariño at Valencia University.

Lurdes Aranguren (Head of the Observatory) y Aintzane Larrabeiti (coordinator) were representing the Basque Culture Observatory.  After outlining the Basque Culture Plan from its methodological and structural perspective and with the emphasis on a participative process, they focused their speech on the objectives, results and projects in which the Observatory is involved, and, particularly, on the statistical framework that is being developed.

The course was also an excellent opportunity to strengthen the links between institutions and entities that are currently working on similar area to those being developed by the Observatory.