T23/0112Culture Connect Data Observatory

The Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Creative Communities programme is a £1.5 million UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) investment that aims to capture new understanding of how culture can address regional inequality and help level up the UK. We are working with academic, third and private sector partners to identify and profile examples of good practice and innovations in partnership working and to explore the potential for AHRC research to help build creative communities of the future across all nations of the UK.

Our audiences include policy makers and government audiences of all scales, third sector workers, communities, academics and researchers, and others.

We are inviting bids to co-develop and pilot a new open access data observatory for culture in the North of Tyne Combined Authority (NoTCA); the biggest geographic devolved area in England from May 2024. The pilot will bring communities, cultural organisations and venues, the devolved authority (as well as its 12 member councils) and national government closer together to better understand the cultural footprint of public users as they move across the cultural offerings of the devolved region. It aims to upskill users to achieve a new awareness and agency of their data and digital footprint through an integrated cross-sector approach to sustainable digital literacy and co-creation within a city region.

The project has been co-designed with national (DCMS, ACE, RSA) and devolved partners (M10, WYCA, NoTCA, Newcastle Cultural Compact and NGCV, Newcastle City Council) to ensure it is fit for purpose and can achieve maximum reach and impact within the timeframe of funding.

Developing a shared, live database, the pilot will enable new exchange of knowledge between stakeholders interested in using data for social good. Public users will be acknowledged and rewarded for their engagement through enhanced user experiences from the participating cultural organisations and venues, while the cultural sector and devolved authorities will benefit from access to new data and insight about how, where and when community members move across cultural spaces within a place. The collaborative governance of the pilot will produce an ongoing dialogue as the website is developed and piloted so that it is co-evaluated from inception and generates long-term relationships that can be adopted by the parties and taken forward beyond the lifetime of the award.