Spillover again…

I have blogged in the past about an emerging European research project on which I am a partner, and which in part grew out of some work I did with the European Centre for Creative Economy in Dortmund in 2012-13. The last meeting in Essen in April saw the launch of a new Wiki space (photo below), and since then we have had the final report from our consultants TFCC (Tom Fleming Cultural Consultancy). See also links below – then my comments will follow, but these pertain to the as-yet-to-be published Final Report. I think this will come out very soon – our next scheduled meetings are Amsterdam end of July, then Essen again in September.

https://ccspillovers.wikispaces.com

https://ccspillovers.wikispaces.com/Results+and+report

On the Final report -- I think an important aspect of the report is the importance awarded to objective, impartial and wide-ranging research – this is important in two respects (i) research (particularly for arts organisations or policy consultancies) is so often 'information gathering' or the production of ‘evidence’, which, as we know, is required to inform or legitimate decision-making. With research on spillover, however, the ‘information’ is not simply ‘there’ to be gathered; it is embedded in forms of knowledge and practice that need to be explored. The old dichotomy of positive and exploratory research (or however you want to phrase it) is not useful here. Research will be more process-oriented, as along the way we need to discover possibilities, conditions of thinking, as well as practice, overturn assumptions on the nature of phenomenon like 'impacts' or 'benefits', and the definition of valid aims – at least, this is what we have found in aiming for a paradigm shift in our understanding of the socio-economic function of the cultural sector. I must admit, I have been getting impatient on how the project has taken almost two years just to define its aims and scope, but on reflection see that this time was needed – and the process has been as significant as what we have ended up with (right now two reports and a wiki page).




(ii) There are some institutional problems with spillover research. It contains what is outside the usual orbit of cultural research – where the people, the organisations, the products, the outcomes, are clearly delimited -- a spillover involves all, or a number of these, with uncertain outcomes. The centrality of free and impartial research is important given the complex ‘ontology’ of the spillover phenomenon – in its broadest sense. Certain forms of spillover can emerge spontaneously, and, at the time, largely undetected. We will need to re-define ‘evidence’, or the material for thought, or at least become more innovative in our understanding of how data can be used. In theory at least, there’s no reason why spillover is not ‘whirlpool-like’, with multiple spillover impacts generated by primary spillover effects or all kinds of compound reactions going on – in the age of virtual knowledge ‘Iconomies’ and post-Triple Helix model…[cf. Professor Gilson Schwartz’s recent Centre organised IAS-fellowship lectures] where new patterns of knowledge production are emerging, through mobile, innovation networks, commons, the ‘gamefication’ of collaboration: it is not so much the ‘effects’ we are looking for, but the way culture and CC actors can engage strategically in open innovations and generate value for and from spillover dynamics. As a research aim, we are starting to look for levels of spillover beyond ‘impacts’ – i.e. not just conceived as one object hitting another object, generating something obvious out of the impact -- or all those other externalities that happen as a matter of course. Spillover is moving more into a productive process outside of organizational entities, with layered dynamics and many possible points of value diffusion or dissemination…and various networked actors or agencies involved in various parts of the process. The underlying assumptions of our spillover concept is still rooted in the old incubator-investment-Silicon Valley, organisation-based, model?

One challenge we face is that our rationale for spillover research (and a large part of the motive of the main funding partners – Arts Council England, for starters) is that spillover can provide a broader route to justifying public investment in culture. In making an emphatic appeal for public investment, I think we need to firm-up our concept of ‘public investment’, particularly in relation to the ambiguous role of government in cultural policy as well as the different and shifting constitution of ‘public’ within each EU country – and in relation to EU level bodies. This is true in terms of the way ‘public’ funding is often calibrated, using partnership agreements, mixed or blended funding, and involving entrepreneurship.

Given, as the Final Report states, we are not rehearsing an argument for public funding per se, we also need to explore what we mean by ‘investment’, given that our understanding of a ‘return’ is more complex than the past policy language of benefits or value. For if spillover is as significant as we think it is – involving the broader milieu, habitus, social, industrial or organisational fields in which cultural activity does or can operate -- then we might find a tension opens up between the assumptions underpinning broad public funding and the specific aims of public investment for new or increased value. For it would make sense for public funders to progressively prioritise cultural organisations or CCIs that have spillover capabilities – or even fund spillover activity as a distinct genre of value production. If spillover becomes equally as important as the value generated by the core competencies of cultural organisations, then spillover could change how those competencies are configured or exercised.

What I like about the Final Report, and the project as it is developing, is the way we insist that the orientation and ‘framing’ of research is informed by the current requirements of both policy and strategy -- that there should be a consistent dialogue between the enterprise of research and the debates and thinking-processes of policy and its implications for strategy (i.e. policy interpreted at the level of the organization or practice). These areas should not be run together, or research be treated like the handmaiden of policy, but they both involve separate discourses, values and procedures.This could be problematic, or could be a needed level of critique on the way publicly-subsidised cultural organisations work.

I think we probably need a distinct and strong agenda for each of three quite different levels and their audiences – the research and academic communities, the policy community (bringing together national and EU policy thinkers, so often working apart), and the level of cultural managers, entrepreneurs and industry innovators (both inside and outside the creative industries). And one important dimension of spillover research is how it can broach the separation of the constituencies that represent the public ‘cultural sector’ and the ‘creative industries’. While, self-evidently, publicly subsidized institutions and commercial businesses operate in very different financial ecosystems, our concern is to find how reconstructed public policies can be instrumental and empowering to both. Up to now, urban policy (creative class, creative city) has been the means to integrate culture’s torn halves or define how arts and CCIs are bound up. However, this has reached its limits. Spillover could define a more effective framework for a fully ‘cultural’ economy.

Jonathan Vickery : 22 Jul 2015 10:33 |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem