Cultural Research Programme
Under pressure from the geopolitical challenges we face, culture becomes ever more important for positive changes in the communities around the world. We must concentrate on the creative potential of all the members of those communities, grasp the links between socio-cultural transformations and slightly less dynamic but equally important foundations for different countries around the same world, while nurturing and fostering cultural - as well as political - consciousness and innovative ideas. Culture today must be understood as one of the most important modes of soft power that conditions the strength and dynamics of our communities.
The main aim of the cultural research programme is to analyse the cultural atmosphere of the contemporary Lithuania and the conditions in which artists, art consumers and institutions operate. At the same time, it is important to stimulate the identification of possible directions for the cultural policy prospects. The cultural research programme also aims at the estimation of possible collaborations between the creative, business, political science, education and social integration sectors, out of which the newly created models of the future coexistence would be drawn.
Introduced in 2014 and later in 2016, the Cultural Research programme, administrated and initiated by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, focuses on the stimulation of the three main parts of the research on culture:
- statistics, where the emphasis is on infrastructure; availability of culture for society and, especially, for those who are the most vulnerable parts of our communities, with possible funding models and schemes for the cultural sector
- policy, where the emphasis is on strategy and planning; establishment of national and international cultural priorities; analysis of the legal framework; cultural identities and the geopolitical realities of the East-European and Baltic regions
- creativity and state advancement, where the emphasis is on the collaboration between culture and education; the development of creative industries; alternative narratives of Lithuania; “power plants” of the imagination; creative cities and regions.
In administrating this programme, the Lithuanian Council for Culture funds around 20 research projects annually, ranging from the analysis of raw statistical data to artistic research propositions, which end up as an art show at the National Gallery of Art of Lithuania.
By stimulating cultural research, the Lithuanian Council for Culture expects to have newly created data sets of local, regional and national statistics on culture, various articles and recommendations for the decision makers, art shows, symposiums, conferences and many different forms of events that would inspire innovative solutions for the strategic problems that our communities face today. The expected outcome also includes improvement of the cultural worker’s skills and the creation of models for the future development of society as a whole.
366 572 EUR in 2014 and 338 200 EUR in 2016.