Past CCSE Projects
Great Place Scheme
Commissioned by Renfrewshire Council, this project sought to identify the culture and heritage that unites and defines Renfrewshire’s places, exploring relationships between landscape, built and social heritage. The project was aimed at growing talent, developing skills and creating strong networks to support an improved visitor experience throughout Paisley and Renfrewshire. Colleagues from CCSE and across UWS worked with participant groupings in learning sets, to help them develop a strong bond and support mechanism with each other over the course of the training and development.
The Social Value of Community Events
This Spirit of 2012/ Local Trust funded piece examined the social value of community events, seeking to go beyond a predominately economic considerations to gain insight into the ways in which community events generate social impacts and value. Based in a thorough investigation of relevant literature we worked to develop an evaluation framework for use by small, community-led events providing a resource to enable them to reflect on their event, what happened and why. Ultimately, achieving a better understanding of an event will allow organisers to make the case for their continuation in the future. The suite of resources developed through this work is available to all on the Spirit of 2012 webpage.
FESTSPACE:
A Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) funded project focusing on how festivals and events enable or restrict access to, and use of, public spaces, including the extent to which they might effectively host interactions and exchanges between people from different cultural, ethnic, socio-economic and socio-demographic backgrounds. The project explored how the design and operation of urban festivals and events might help to dismantle existing divisions, while also acknowledging that festivals and events have the potential to symbolically, financially and physically exclude marginal populations from conventional public spaces, hence making spaces less public or less diverse. FESTSPACE focused on Western European cities that are dealing with significant demographic changes caused by in-migration. The project also examined the festivals and events staged in three archetypal public spaces – streets, squares, parks – while acknowledging the potential implications for indoor public spaces (particularly museums and libraries). It adopted a series of innovative methodological approaches to study the influence of festivals and events on urban public spaces, including video and auditory ethnographies, go-along interviews, and participatory planning charrettes and salons.
Leveraging Parasport Events for Community Participation:
A Social Science and Humanities Research Council (Canada) funded research project that explores the leveraging strategies of different major sport events for persons with disabilities. This study found that policy initiatives are important but need to be informed by all stakeholders, including persons with disabilities; improvements in attitudes towards disability are measurable directly post-event but the relationship to societal behaviours and the lived experiences is poorly understood; urban accessibility improvements are often temporary and highly contextual; and; structural and societal change will not necessarily happen during the lifecycle of a Games but strategies implemented for the Games may improve sport participation opportunities in the long term, if they continue to be resourced. SSHRC has funded a follow up study focused on the post-event effects on persons with a disability in the host location named Project Echo which utilises a participatory approach to understand more about the lived experiences of persons with a disability in the host cities some years after the major event has finished.
A Review of the Contribution of Arts & Culture to Global Security & Stability:
Commissioned by the British Council, this work comprised an appraisal of relevant academic and grey literature, followed by three country case studies exploring arts and culture focused post-conflict, resolution and peace-building interventions in Colombia, Syria and Rwanda. The case study research was augmented by interviews with stakeholders in the case-study countries, British Council and Whitehall. The review suggested areas of potential further study and recommendations for the British Council. A mapping framework was also included; listing arts and culture-based projects with aims and objectives that coincide with those, which contribute to security and stability agendas in the case study countries and beyond. The final report has been included in the British Council’s 2018 tailored review submission and, has been positively received in Whitehall.
Arts, Culture and Soft Power: Developing an Evidence Base:
Commissioned by the British Council, this work examined the use of arts and culture in the achievement of soft power objectives. The research team sought to build on the evidence generated during the recent AHRC Cultural Value Project, other international examples and the British Council’s own bank of arts-based evaluation alongside other relevant research to address the following a trio of research questions. We looked at whether the arts contribute to the aims, aspirations and delivery of soft power, the mechanisms though which this was achieved and what “value” can be ascribed to the arts contribution to this agenda. The research also examined what conditions for change the arts can create within a soft power agenda and, how we can develop a creditable evidence base or evidence framework and “theory of change” to measure the impact of the arts in the delivery of soft power outcomes.