CultureWatchEurope: Cultural governance observatory
The Council of Europe’s CultureWatchEurope Initiative (CWE) offered innovative and evidence-based overviews of culture, heritage and media developments in Europe, adding value to the Organisation’s existing information tools, programmes and methods by linking them and by inviting civil society to contribute.
CultureWatchEurope pinpointed developments, difficulties and good practices, so that cultural governance and policy making could be enhanced Europe-wide by:
- generating and reviewing policy standards in areas of concern to governments and society by providing data, information, knowledge, comparative and trend analyses, expertise, advice, and case studies;
- providing online information through joint access to the Council of Europe’s electronic information tools and making rapid consultation of European states in order to compare achievements.
European Audiovisual Observatory | HEREIN: European Heritage Network | Compendium on cultural policies and trends in Europe |
- contributing to prospective analysis and forward thinking by addressing topical issues and emerging trends, developments and difficulties.
Major events
Major events were held 2009-2012 and CultureWatchEurope Public Fora were held in conjunction with the Annual Compendium Authors meetings in 2013-15.
- 2012 Event "Cultural Access and Participation - from Indicators to Policies for Democracy", Helsinki (Finland), 30 June 2012
- 2011 Think tank "Cultural Governance: from challenges to changes", Bled (Slovenia), 11-12 November 2011
- 2010 Conference "Culture and the policies of change", Brussels (Belgium), 6-7 September 2010
- 2009 Conference "Culture and development 20 years after the fall of communism", Cracow (Poland), 4-6 June 2009
Think pieces
A number of “think pieces” were produced to shed light on topical developments:
- Digitisation and cultural democracy, an (as yet) unfulfilled promise (J. Smiers)
- The Impact of the New Nationalism and Identity Politics on Cultural Policy-making in Europe and Beyond (P. Duelund)
- Culture and Climate Change (O. Gerlach-Hansen)
- New models of governance of culture (K. Pavić)