Know-how and Knowledge: a research toolkit for creative organisations

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This project follows on from research funded by the AHRC Cultural Value programme which identified a need for small and medium sized organisations in the creative and cultural industries to have resources enabling them to conduct research to develop their audience, participation and programmes. Current research resources available within the creative industries do not account for the complexities of the value-based decision making involved in meeting the needs of current or potential audiences, consumers and participants. While some online and paper-based training resources for creative organisations are available, these tend to be quantitative and 'hard data'-driven for marketing purposes. Such research tools do not provide the know-how and skills to analyse qualitative research data. Small- and medium-sized creative organisations need research know-how and skills to inform their planning and development, and their funding applications. Our experience is that very often small- and medium- sized creative organisations either do not have the specialist research skills, or do not have the money to employ a specialist research agency to generate and analyse research data.The project will co-create a qualitative research toolkit in the form of a website for audience/consumer/participant research with and for small- and medium-sized creative organisations. This co-creation process will include Creative Scotland, its clients and potential clients, other funders, charities, policymakers and academics. This includes nine named partner organisations who will actively take part in research on their own practices in relation to audience development in order to inform the toolkit. The aim of the project is to develop a 'research habit' among creative organisations, which will enhance their ability to develop meaningful programmes of work to retain existing audiences and attract new audiences, and demonstrate this understanding of their audiences and potential audiences to potential funders and supporters. The research team will use tastemaking and cultural value as an innovative and flexible research framework within which to co-create the toolkit's content. This framework has been tried and tested in the PI's Cultural Value study and the PI's three subsequent studies funded by the University of Edinburgh. The framework allows exploration of co-creators' organisational and artistic practices, assisting understanding of where audience/consumer/participant development fits within the organisation's planning and development process. The framework also allows the research team to explore how audience/consumer/participant development practices are informed by the values and tastes of the different organisations' various stakeholder perspectives. This understanding will underpin the toolkit with a depth of knowledge of creative organisations' audience/consumer/participant development research needs that currently-available resources do not provide.