Towns and the Cultural Economies of Recovery: A New Multidisciplinary Mapping

2019年，政府确定了100个有资格在交通、宽带连接、技能和文化四个关键领域获得额外支持的城镇。尤其是后三者，关系密切。文化，以及发展、促进和维持文化所需的技能和数字联系，有助于建设公民基础设施，以解决紧迫的社会和经济问题。同样，充满活力和多样化的文化生活可以促进创意经济的发展，吸引和留住年轻人，他们可以使破败的城镇中心恢复活力，并在社会或破碎或分裂的半城市社区之间架起桥梁。持续的COVID-19危机从根本上加强了城镇重建的理由：中小企业、零售组织以及文化、遗产和创意产业面临的经济挑战迅速变得紧迫。然而，这也可能预示着一个反思的时刻和变革的机会，特别是在较小的社区，因为新的地方和数字网络开始出现，这些网络受到大流行的集体社会、精神和经济挑战的影响。政府、企业和个人在行为和组织上的适应，很可能也会让我们认识到，通过重新思考长期存在的战略、结构或实践，我们能够多么迅速地影响变革。该项目将扩大新兴和创新的多学科方法的作用范围，使我们能够更好地理解和发展文化对公民和经济复兴的贡献。项目团队在人文科学和社会科学的交叉点工作，将根据城镇社会和经济格局的持续变化及其在covid -19后面临的直接挑战来构建研究框架。该项目将产生一份范围研究和报告，提出未来的研究方向、机会和优先事项，这将巩固和推动文化在英国各地城镇经济复苏和更新中的作用。它将侧重于从政府的“100个城镇”名单中确定的四个案例研究城镇，并通过维多利亚县历史项目强大的当地社区网络，开发可转移的，可扩展的见解，跨学科的方法和方法。该项目汇集了人文学科的研究人员和城镇智库中心的社会科学专家，以及由NESTA领导的历史英格兰和创意产业政策和证据中心的合作伙伴。它还包括与Triodos和Starling银行的合作。这些合作伙伴和合作者站在各自领域应用实践、创新和颠覆的最前沿，将帮助我们以全新的方式思考研究议程，并确定传播和影响的机制。

In 2019, the Government identified 100 towns that qualified for additional support in four key areas: transport, broadband connectivity, skills and culture. The latter three, in particular, are closely aligned. Culture, and the skills and digital connections necessary to develop, promote, and sustain it, help build the civic infrastructure to tackle urgent social and economic issues. Equally, a vibrant and diverse cultural life grows the creative economy, attracts and retains the young people who can revive depleted town centres, and bridges socially or fractured or divided semi-urban communities.The case for regeneration in our towns has been radically strengthened by the ongoing crisis of COVID-19: the economic challenges faced by SMEs, retail organisations, and the culture, heritage and creative industries have quickly become urgent. Yet this might also herald a moment of reflection and transformative opportunity in smaller communities in particular, as the new local and digital networks shaped by the collective social, mental, and economic challenges of the pandemic start to emerge. The behavioural and organisational adaptations by governments, businesses, and individuals may well also create a seismic shift in our understanding of how rapidly we can effect change by rethinking long-standing strategies, structures, or practices.This project will scope the role that that emerging and innovative multidisciplinary methodologies can play in allowing us to better understand and develop the contributions that culture can make to civic and economic regeneration. Working at the intersection of the Humanities and Social Sciences, the project team will frame the research in relation to the ongoing changes to the social and economic landscapes of towns, and their immediate challenges post-COVID-19. The project will produce a scoping study and report proposing future research directions, opportunities and priorities which will underpin and drive culture's role in the economic recovery and renewal of towns across the UK. It will focus on four case-study towns, identified from the government's '100 Towns' list, and through the robust local community networks of the Victoria County History project, developing transferable, extensible insights, cross-disciplinary methodologies and approaches.The project brings together researchers in the Humanities with Social Sciences specialists at the Centre for Towns Think Tank, with partners Historic England and the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre led by NESTA. It also includes collaborations with Triodos and Starling banks. At the forefront of applied practice, innovation and disruption in their fields, these partners and collaborators will help us think in radical new ways about the research agenda, and identify mechanisms for dissemination and impact.