New guide to evidencing arts and culture

The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) has published The Cultural Learning Evidence Champion’s Handbook.

This handbook is designed to make it easier not only to ‘do’ evidence and evaluation, but to love them, to become a champion for them and spread the good word throughout arts and cultural education.”

Research carried out by the RSA a year ago found that only a small proportion of the arts and cultural learning sector were using reliable evidence to inform the design of their programmes and evaluation to understand their impact. The organisation worked with Arts Council England Bridge organisations to explore why cultural learning professionals are unable to do more.

The resulting handbook, published last week, covers the four key skills of an Evidence Champion – Source, Lead, Learn and Share – and shares advice on what prospective Evidence Champions can do now to make arts and cultural learning more evidence-rich. The information will be useful for anyone working in arts and culture, and includes:

• School leaders, teachers and non-teaching staff
• Cultural learning organisations
• Artist practitioners
• Funders and sector support organisations
• Independent evaluators and researchers.

Download the report here (PDF)

Image courtesy of RSA