‘Pandemic Culture’ book launch

Director of Culture Commons, Trevor MacFarlane today attended the launch of ‘Pandemic Culture’ - a new book incorporating a chapter he contributed to which provides a comprehensive analysis of UK government policy responses during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This new book - based on the findings from a 15-month research project involving Centre for Cultural Value, The Audience Agency and Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre - offers a rigorous statistical analysis of the impacts that different policy responses had on the workforce, organisations and audiences too.

The ‘Culture in Crisis’ research project ultimately led to the amassing of the largest evidence base on Covid-19 and its impact on culture anywhere in the world.

Taking a mixed-methods approach, Culture Commons worked with the core research team throughout the pandemic to ensure emergent findings were being shared with government departments in real-time. We also developed a series of evidence-led policy recommendations for national and regional leader, and leading sector representative bodies. We launched these recommendations in a unique policy event in the UK Houses of Parliament with the involvement of the Minister for Arts and Culture.

Today’s launch was attended by academics, practitioners, policymakers and students working in the cultural industries and those interested in cultural policy. A panel of experts reflected on the key themes that emerged from the research.

Trevor MacFarlane commented:

“It was a pleasure to be in Manchester today as part of the team launching this important book chronicling one of the most pivotal times in living memory…Many of the recommendations we developed at that time still stand up today. We have to ask ourselves: have we moved the dial on the structural issues that led to the wildly unequal experiences that different parts of the DCMS ecosystem and groups in society had? Or are we walking headlong into the next crisis with the same structural issues left unaddressed?”

You can find a copy of the book here: Manchester University Press - Pandemic culture

You can read the original study here: Culture in crisis - new report from our major research project into the impacts of Covid-19 - Centre for Cultural Value

You can read the policy recommendations developed by Culture Commons here: Culture in Crisis: Recommendations for Policymakers (culturecommons.uk)