European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture as a Basis for Inclusive Cultural Policies in the Globalizing World
Duration: 2/2020–7/2023, Funding: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870691
Main coordinator: Professor Susanne Janssen (Erasmus University Rotterdam); the consortium includes research teams from nine European countries: Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland and the UK
Research team in Finland (Tampere University): Semi Purhonen (PI), Riie Heikkilä (senior researcher), Ossi Sirkka (junior researcher), Sara Sivonen (junior researcher)
Description:
The INVENT consortium sets out to identify, through research, the cultural and social preconditions required for the strategic goals of the New EU Agenda for Culture to be realized. The New EU Agenda for Culture represents an exceptionally significant step forward in European cultural policy. However, the EU’s new focus on the sphere of culture is accompanied by theoretical and methodological challenges. The changes which Europe and the world have undergone over the last thirty years are so drastic that they require a different approach to creating cultural policy.
INVENT aims to contribute to a “social turn” in cultural policies, that takes into account how the way of life and cultural participation of European citizens has been influenced by the mega-trends of globalization, European integration and the migrations that accompany them, the digital revolution, and rising social inequalities. The bottom-up approach of the project will provide insight into multiple, often mutually contradictory, concepts of culture and understandings of societal values of culture among various social (demographic, socio-economic, ethnic, religious…) groups in European societies. At the same time it will offer the foundation for new methodologies for capturing the societal value of culture. This is the overall goal of the project, aimed at supporting the values of culture vital for the preservation and improvement of the European project, by means of striving to promote identity and belonging, inclusiveness, tolerance, and social cohesion.
Homepage: INVENT