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Phase 1: Scoping a Shared Regional Approach for the Collection, Analysis, and Sharing of the Social and Economic impacts of Cultural and Natural Heritage in County Durham 

Cultural heritage and archaeology are drivers for Creative Economies and UNESCO’s 1972 Convention Guidelines recognises that their protection contributes to sustainable development. UNESCO published ‘Creative Economy’ in 2013, highlighting heritage’s role as a local development driver.  

Despite broad agreement that engaging with cultural and natural heritage can offer tangible economic, educational, health and well-being benefits, there is no agreed or shared approach to the design, collection, analysis and sharing of the social and economic impacts of cultural and natural heritage in County Durham.  Heritage organisations and site managers are sometimes obliged to meet the monitoring requirements of individual funders, but this has resulted in a regional mosaic of partial, often inaccessible, evidence with a lack of uniformity, standards, or long-term data. 

This project aims to scope, design and disseminate an agreed regional approach for the collection, analysis and sharing of the social and economic impacts of cultural and natural heritage across County Durham. 

In the scoping phase we: 

  • Interviewed arts, culture, and heritage organisations within County Durham to identify the current social and economic impacts of their work and the methods used to record and disseminate this. 
  • Interviewed funding bodies who operate within County Durham to identify the current social and economic impacts of their work and the methods used to record and disseminate this. 
  • Organised online workshops to look at the ways in which other organisations and region recognise and record social and economic impact. 
  • Organised working groups to discuss the design, collection, analysis and sharing of frameworks and approaches. 
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Phase 2: Piloting a Shared Regional Approach for the Collection, Analysis, and Sharing of the Social and Economic impacts of Cultural and Natural Heritage in County Durham 

In Phase 1 of this project, we conducted a series of one-to-one scoping interviews and working groups with heritage and culture organisations across County Durham to understand existing methods for recognising and recording impact. We also looked at what organisations would like to record, and what they would need to be able to do this. One of the main issues cited was a lack of a stable and inclusive framework. As such, we introduced the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a potential framework for recording and reporting impacts.  

In Phase 2 of this project, we aim to further develop the strategies and methodologies utilised in interviews and working groups by: 

  • Organising a working group of heritage professional in County Durham to collaborate on and co-design the SDG framework;  
  • trialling the SDGs as a shared approach for recognising and framing impacts; 
  • evaluating data sharing in County Durham; 
  • exploring the potential of econometric analysis over the next 15 months; 
  • designing and providing training and support workshops, to support all three sets of activities. This includes four external-facing workshops and a series of monthly online impact workshops to showcase the ways in which other parts of the UK, and the world, recognise, record, and report impact.