This report, funded by the British Academy, presents a year-long exploration into measuring social and cultural infrastructure, developing a framework that highlights its core role in community life and offers practical applications for various stakeholders including policymakers, funders and those people involved in the provision and maintenance of these key assets.
This report brings together the results of our year-long exploration, funded by the British Academy as part of their Social and Cultural Infrastructure policy theme, on how best to measure social and cultural infrastructure. The report starts by outlining how an approach based on the characteristics of infrastructure more generally, can be used to identify social and cultural infrastructure. It then explores the challenge of measuring social and cultural infrastructure. Finally, the report develops a framework for measuring the critical, yet often overlooked, assets, facilities and spaces that make up our shared social and cultural infrastructure.
Two broad themes emerge out of our research. The first is that those assets classed as social and cultural infrastructure demonstrate the same core characteristics as other types of infrastructure, while also making particular contributions to the social and cultural lives of communities. The second is that rather than being seen as an end result, measurement should be seen as a process involving a number of choices and decisions about what is being measured and how it is presented. The framework outlined in the report sets out the steps required to ensure that this process is transparent and takes into account evidence and insights from a wide-range of different voices.
The report provides an indication of some of our framework’s practical applications, beginning with its use at the national level and then examining its relevance for regional and local governments, funders, institutions, community organisations, and, finally, the private sector. We hope that this work will be of interest to a wide range of stakeholders, from policymakers to funders to those people involved in the provision and maintenance of these key assets.
Read the news article: Value of social and cultural infrastructure ‘risks being neglected in decision-making’ without new measurement framework
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