Valuing Digital Cultural and Heritage Assets

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This Valuing Digital Cultural and Heritage Assets project will use insights from behavioural and experimental economics alongside arts and humanities impact and value models to provide more effective valuation of cultural and heritage capital. We are particularly interested in establishing the value of digital experiences and interactions compared to that of physical heritage assets. Through the design and implementation of a series of field experiments where participants consume physical and digital forms of heritage and cultural capital in different ways based on their decisions, this project establishes how the value of digital assets may differ from physical engagement. Based on this approach, the project will overcome several of the limitations of traditional economic approaches which tend to focus around hypothetical valuations obtained outside of the relevant use context. An initial review focuses on synthesising prior research into the value of cultural and heritage capital in its many forms. A central focus of this review assesses previous valuations of assets that are born digital versus those assets which are digital surrogates of physical assets. A series of experimental studies to estimate willingness to pay for digital and physical collections and/or experiences will be used with audiences from a range of cultural and heritage project partners. This will offer quantifiable evidence on the value that can be attached to the digital consumption of cultural and heritage assets. However, this approach alone will not be sufficient to fully understand the complex nature of the value of digital cultural and heritage assets. A programme of qualitative research will further explore the reasons for differential valuations of cultural and heritage assets. The triangulation of quantitative and qualitative techniques will ensure that digital cultural heritage value is clearly understood and purposefully used to enable decision making in the sector. The project will therefore develop a new behavioural toolkit of valuation methods that are more appropriate for valuing cultural and heritage assets in digital forms, as well as those that are 'born digital' with no physical equivalents. An industry and policy symposium event held at the end of the project will present and discuss the project findings and agree on future research directions. The event will include short talks, and knowledge sharing and networking opportunities. The key focus of this project is around the valuation of digital cultural and heritage assets (Strand G of this funding call) and incorporates triangulation of values using different valuation methods (Strand F) in order to develop the link between qualitative methodologies to assess why people value cultural and heritage assets and quantitative economic techniques that can monetise value (Strand B). From a policy perspective, the project will help government bodies such as the DCMS to improve their understanding of the value of digital cultural and heritage assets. Having more accurate valuations of these resources will assist in improving the diversity of output, which will help make both the industry and wider society more robust and resilient to future shocks and offer opportunities to reach wider and more diverse audiences. Not only will innovations in this space allow the UK creative and cultural sector to reach a larger, potentially global audience, thereby increasing consumption and exports of UK creative and cultural assets, but will also allow these industries the opportunity to better serve under-represented groups and help to improve mental health and well-being across society (Wheatley & Bickerton, 2017).Wheatley, D., & Bickerton, C. (2017). Subjective well-being and engagement in arts, culture and sport. Journal of Cultural Economics, 41(1), 23-45.