International activity of arts and cultural organisations

While the primary aim of this commission is to assess the current level and role of international activity in the arts and culture sector, we would also like to gain insight into the perceived barriers and opportunities for arts and culture organisations regarding international work. Whilst most of our strategic funds for International have already been developed, there is potential for this work to contribute to the detailed design of the potential Japan/Korea programme, and for it to inform the monitoring and evaluation of future grants and funding rounds.

The results of this study will form a baseline of information which can be repeated in order to track change over time. For this reason, an output of this commission is to deliver a set of tools and methodological guidance which would allow ACE to repeat or re-commission this study in the future. All intellectual property rights will be owned by ACE.

The study must address the following research questions:

1. How widespread is export and exchange work and other inbound and outbound international activity amongst arts and culture organisations?

2. What types of export and exchange work and/or other international activity are organisations undertaking, and in which territories?

3. What is the financial value of international working for arts and culture organisations, including, for example, earned income from ticket receipts or fees, grants from trusts and foundations based overseas, EU funds, investment in co-commissions?

4. What is the contribution of export and exchange work or other international activity to non-financial outcomes that contribute to their mission, specifically: artistic creation, networking, business models, knowledge and skills exchange and organisational and audience development?

5. What are the main opportunities, drawbacks, enablers and barriers associated with developing export and exchange work or other international opportunities for arts and cultural organisations?

6. How do findings to the above questions vary across different types of organisations – in particular: large or small scale, art form or cultural focus, geographical location and business, stage of development in international working (emergent or established) or operating/business model?

Outputs • Interim presentation and short accompanying report • Final written report and findings workshop addressing the research questions • Document review of relevant literature and data • Minimum of six case studies which highlight work of organisations or across themes • An anonymised dataset • A set of research tools (for example, survey tool, topic guides, sampling framework) and methodology note.

Further information about our requirements is available in the ITT.